China offers cash rewards for hackers it says are Taiwanese military

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Authorities in southern China announced on Thursday they were offering rewards of more than $1,000 for the arrest of 20 people they say are Taiwanese military hackers, drawing an angry reaction from Taiwan’s defence ministry.

The public security bureau in the Chinese city of Guangzhou said the hackers were part of the Taiwan military’s Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command, and published their pictures, names and Taiwan identity card numbers.

Rewards of 10,000 yuan ($1,392.25) will be offered to those who provide clues or cooperate in their arrest, it said in a statement carried by Chinese state media.

The hackers were involved in organising, planning and premeditating attacks on key sectors such as military, aerospace, government departments, energy and transportation, maritime affairs, science and technology research firms in China as well as Hong Kong and Macau, Xinhua news agency said.

Xinhua, citing a cybersecurity report, said the Taiwan “information, communication and digital army” had cooperated with U.S. anti-Chinese forces to conduct public opinion and cognitive warfare against China, secretly instigate revolution and attempt to disrupt public order in China.

Taiwan’s defence ministry’s Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command said in a statement it was not carrying out any “corporate cyber attacks”, and that China’s offers of a bounty highlighted “the rude and unreasonable attitude of the Chinese communists in intimidating and coercing the Taiwanese people”.

“Recent statements by the European Union, the United States and the Czech Republic condemning the Chinese communists’ hacking organisations for carrying out cyber-attacks prove that the Chinese communists are not only a regional troublemaker, but a common threat to the global internet,” it added.

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that the Chinese allegations were invented, saying Beijing was trying to shift the focus from Czech and European scrutiny over alleged Chinese hacking activities there.

“They fabricated a false narrative to shift the focus. It’s a very typical behaviour by the Chinese Communist Party,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

China also said Taiwan had longstanding cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies as part of the United States’ “Asia-Pacific Strategy”, calling it Taiwan’s attempt to gain independence through relying on the United States.

“The US intelligence department has long provided personnel training and technical equipment support for Taiwan’s ‘information, communication and digital army’, and many police stations have sent ‘hunting’ teams to Taiwan, to launch cyber attacks on China,” according to a social media post by an account linked to Chinese state television.

Last week authorities in Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province, attributed a cyber attack on an unnamed technology company to the Taiwan government, saying Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party supported the “overseas hacker organisation” responsible.

In response, Taiwan said Beijing was peddling false information, and that it was China that was carrying out hacking against the island.

China views Taiwan as its own territory. Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.

Chinese courts and legal bodies have no jurisdiction in Taiwan, whose government has repeatedly complained about Beijing’s “long armed jurisdiction” efforts.

($1 = 7.1826 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; and Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee in Taipei; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Michael Perry, Lincoln Feast, Kate Mayberry, William Maclean)