Alibaba denies report accusing it of supporting Chinese army against US

Beijing - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Saturday denied to AFP an article in the Financial Times (FT) that accused it of assisting in Beijing's military operations against the US.

Alibaba “provides technical support for the ‘operations’ of the Chinese army against US targets,” stated the report from the British newspaper published on Saturday morning, citing a White House memo.

According to the same document claims that Alibaba transmits user data to the Chinese armed forces and authorities, particularly IP addresses and purchase histories.

The business daily clarified that it is unable to independently verify these claims. However, the White House considers that they could pose a threat to national security.

“The claims and insinuations in the article are completely false,” an Alibaba group spokesperson told AFP.

According to the company, this is a “malicious public relations operation that clearly comes from an unscrupulous voice, seeking to harm President Trump’s recent trade agreement” with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. The two leaders met at the end of October after months of a tariff trade war.

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a technological battle in recent years to dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) sector in particular.

On Thursday, Anthropic, a US AI startup, claimed to have thwarted a cyber-espionage campaign conducted almost autonomously using the same technology.

According to a report from the Californian company, the operation was attributed to a group called GTG-1002, backed by the Chinese state.

The spokesperson for the Asian giant's diplomacy, Lin Jian, stated on Friday that he was “not familiar” with the case and that Beijing constantly combats cyber-hacking activities.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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