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In a secret meeting late last year, Chinese officials acknowledged Beijing’s involvement in the recent Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure, suggesting these attacks came as a result of America’s support for Taiwan.

From The Wall Street Journal. Chinese officials acknowledged in a secret December meeting that Beijing was behind a widespread series of alarming cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring how hostilities between the two superpowers are continuing to escalate.

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The Chinese delegation linked years of intrusions into computer networks at U.S. ports, water utilities, airports and other targets, to increasing U.S. policy support for Taiwan, the people, who declined to be named, said.

The first-of-its-kind signal at a Geneva summit with the outgoing Biden administration startled American officials used to hearing their Chinese counterparts blame the campaign, which security researchers have dubbed Volt Typhoon, on a criminal outfit, or accuse the U.S. of having an overactive imagination. …

Officials say Chinese hackers’ targeting of civilian infrastructure in recent years presents among the most troubling security threats facing the Trump administration. …

During the half-day meeting in Geneva, Wang Lei, a top cyber official with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, indicated that the infrastructure hacks resulted from the U.S.’s military backing of Taiwan, an island Beijing claims as its own, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the conversation.

Wang or the other Chinese officials didn’t directly state that China was responsible for the hacking, the U.S. officials said. But American officials present and others later briefed on the meeting perceived the comments as confirmation of Beijing’s role and was intended to scare the U.S. from involving itself if a conflict erupts in the Taiwan Strait.  …

A Chinese official would likely only acknowledge the intrusions even in a private setting if instructed to do so by the top levels of Xi’s government, said Dakota Cary, a China expert at the cybersecurity firm SentinelOne. The tacit admission is significant, he said, because it may reflect a view in Beijing that the likeliest military conflict with the U.S. would be over Taiwan and that a more direct signal about the stakes of involvement needed to be sent to the Trump administration.

“China wants U.S. officials to know that, yes, they do have this capability, and they are willing to use it,” Cary said.

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(Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal. Photo Credit: Microbiz Mag – https://www.flickr.com/photos/microbizmag/53344484803/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141177757)