Chinese online trading giant Alibaba on Saturday took issue with AFP over an article in the Financial Times accusing it of aiding Chinese army operations against the United States.
Alibaba “providing technical support to Chinese army operations against targets” America, said an article in a British daily published Saturday morning, Beijing time, and based on notes from the White House. The same document states, according to the FT, that Alibaba sent user data to the Chinese army and authorities, specifically IP addresses and purchase history. The economic and financial daily said it could not independently verify the statement.
The claim is “completely false” according to Alibaba
According to the FT, the White House considers this to be a threat to national security. “The claims and insinuations in the article are completely false,” an Alibaba group spokesperson reacted to AFP. Alibaba said they saw a “a malicious PR operation clearly stemming from unscrupulous voices, seeking to undermine President Trump’s recent trade agreement” and his counterpart Xi Jinping, who met in late October, after months of trade war involving import duties.
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the United States, wrote in X that the Chinese government “has never and will never require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located overseas in violation of local laws”.
Fierce battle in AI
Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a technological battle in recent years, particularly for dominance in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. On Thursday, Anthropic, an American AI startup, said it had thwarted a cyber espionage campaign carried out largely autonomously by artificial intelligence. One operation was linked to a group called GTG-1002 that is backed by the Chinese state, according to a report from the California company. China’s diplomatic spokesman, Lin Jian, said on Friday that he had not done so “foreign” the file, and that Beijing continues to fight hacking activity.
