Britain and the United States have accused China of launching “malicious” cyberattacks around the world in an unprecedented joint effort to expose Beijing’s espionage operations.

The UK has publicly accused China of targeting the Electoral Commission watchdog and supporting an online “reconnaissance” campaign targeting the email accounts of MPs and peers.

British intelligence services believe Chinese spies may use the stolen information to target dissidents and critics of Xi Jinping’s government in the UK.

U.S. officials say the APT31 hacking group has spent more than a decade targeting the sensitive data of politicians, journalists, academics, dissidents and U.S. companies.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the “prolific global hacking campaign” backed by the Chinese government was aimed at “suppressing critics of the Chinese regime, harming government agencies and stealing trade secrets.”

U.S. prosecutors said the hackers sent more than 10,000 “malicious” emails to targets in an effort to obtain personal information, adding that the criminals threatened to “undermine democracy and threaten our national security.”

The United States on Monday indicted seven suspected Chinese hackers.

Britain says Beijing-linked hackers were behind an attack on the Electoral Commission that exposed the personal data of 40 million voters and 43 individuals, including MPs and peers.

Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Technology Company, a front company associated with the APT31 hacking group, and two individuals, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, were sanctioned in connection with the hacking attack.

However, some lawmakers targeted by Beijing say the government’s response has not been thorough enough.

They urged the administration to take a tougher stance on China, calling it a “threat” to national security rather than an “epochal challenge” and placing China on the “enhanced” level of the Foreign Influence Registration program.

Former Conservative minister Tim Lawton told Sky News: “We’re sanctioning two people, two fairly junior officials, and a private company with 50 employees. That’s not good enough.”

The measures were announced in a House of Commons statement by Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, who appeared to suggest China could soon be declared a “threat”.

He told MPs that “we are currently in the process of reaching the Government’s collective agreement on this matter” and that “clearly the conduct I have described today will have a very strong impact on the decisions we take”.

Tensions have reportedly surfaced in the cabinet over the issue, with some ministers pushing for tougher action against Beijing and others resisting over concerns it could damage economic and trade relations.

British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the actions were “completely unacceptable” and he had raised the issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The Chinese ambassador has also been summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain his country’s actions.

The Electoral Commission attack was discovered in October 2022, but by then hackers had been able to access the commission’s systems containing the details of tens of millions of voters for more than a year.

The register held at the time of the cyber attack included the names and addresses of anyone registered to vote in the UK between 2014 and 2022, as well as names registered as overseas voters.

The National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC), part of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, said Chinese state hackers were likely to have stolen emails and data from the electoral register.

Combined with other data sources, Beijing’s intelligence services are likely to use this data to conduct large-scale espionage and transnational repression against dissidents and critics in the UK.

There is no indication that the hack had any impact on the UK’s largely paper-based electoral system.

Dowden insisted local elections in May and the general election later this year would be safe from Chinese cyberattacks.

“Yes, I can guarantee that our electoral process will be secure,” he told the PA news agency.

The UK acted with the support of allies in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership, which also includes the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to identify cyber activity linked to China.

Hackers New Zealand claims are linked to the Chinese government launched a state-backed operation on Tuesday targeting the country’s parliament in 2021.

Judith Collins, the minister responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), said in a statement: “Following the 2021 breach of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Department of Parliamentary Services, the GCSB’s National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) A robust technical assessment was completed and the activity was attributed to a People’s Republic of China (China) state-sponsored group known as APT40.

“Fortunately, in this case, NCSC worked with the affected organization to contain the activity and remove it shortly after the attackers were able to gain access to the network.”

She added that New Zealand would not follow Britain and the United States in sanctioning China because the country had no laws allowing such penalties.

The Chinese government strongly denies that it has carried out, supported or encouraged cyber attacks on the UK, calling these claims “completely fabricated and malicious slander”.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London said: “China has always resolutely cracked down on all forms of cyber attacks in accordance with the law.

“China does not encourage, support or condone cyber attacks.

At the same time, we oppose the politicization of cybersecurity issues and the groundless smearing of other countries without factual basis.

We urge relevant parties to stop spreading false information and stop staging anti-China political farces. “