The unprecedented campaign culminated in the arrest of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on December 1, over alleged breaches of US sanctions with Iran.

In a speech on November 1, former US attorney-general Jeff Sessions flagged the prospect of further action against Chinese hackers, as he unveiled additional resources for the Justice Department to seek prosecutions.

In saying "enough is enough", Mr Sessions announced the formation of the "China Initiative" to identify instances of Beijing's intellectual property theft which could be prosecuted.

"We will continue to charge wrongdoers based on carefully conducted investigations done with integrity and professionalism, not politics, and we will seek extradition of criminals," he said.

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Breach of agreement

One US official, who asked not to be named, said further disclosure on China's global campaign of hacking was expected shortly, while the US media has been full of reports the indictments are imminent.

Intelligence sources have previously told the Financial Review that China had waged a "a constant, significant effort to steal our [Australia's] intellectual property".


This has been linked to China's Ministry of State Security, which has been tagged as the responsible party for the "Cloud Hopper" attacks.

These attacks exploited poorly secured IT service providers used by Australian companies, which then allowed the hackers to "hop" into the main networks of the affected firms.

New US hacking cases to fuel China trade war AP

The attacks are in breach of an agreement struck between former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last year to not steal each other's commercial secrets.

Any prosecutions in the US could help Australian law enforcement efforts, which sources have indicated are at least a year behind those in the US.

Intelligence sources said the Australian Signals Directorate has detected multiple Chinese attacks on Australian companies over the last year, although the names of the affected firms have not been made public.

The Justice Department unsealed a string of indictments in October against Chinese hackers, one of which placed an Australian IT company at the centre of a major operation involving the MSS and its efforts to steal advanced aviation technology from a US/French joint venture.


The indictment claims Chinese hackers penetrated the computer systems of an "Australian domain name registrar", named only as "Company L".

In a statement Huawei said; "it firmly believes our partners and customers will make the right choice based on their own judgment and experience of working with Huawei."

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