China: We’re the ones being hacked

China’s military is the victim of hackers and is not perpetrating cyber attacks, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

China’s information network and “especially the military has long been a victim of overseas hacking,” spokesman Huang Xueping said Thursday in a press release.

The comments were first reported by China Daily, an official news outlet of the government.

China’s military has come under fire from the U.S., which believes it is linked to hacker attacks on Google and other companies. Two Chinese schools have been connected to the attacks on Google, one of which has close ties to China’s military.

China has repeatedly said it had nothing to do with the cyber attacks, something Xueping emphasized on Thursday.

“China’s law forbids any form of cyber attack,” he said. “China attaches great importance to fighting cyber crimes and has been trying to enhance cooperation with other countries and international organizations on it.”

The Google attacks have highlighted growing worries in Washington about U.S. vulnerabilities to hackers.

Michael McConnnell, a former director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, this week told a congressional panel that the U.S. would lose a cyber war if it had to fight one today.

He compared the threat of sophisticated cyber attacks to the dangers the U.S. faced during the Cold War.