By William Wan
The Washington Post - Thursday, October 31
BEIJING — Allegations in an Australian newspaper that the United
States and its allies use embassies in Asian capitals as hubs for
electronic data collection triggered a new wave of outrage at Washington
on Thursday.
China’s government is “severely concerned about the reports and
demands a clarification and explanation,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying said. Government officials in Indonesia, Malaysia and
Thailand — all U.S. allies — made similarly angry statements.
“Indonesia strongly protests the existence of a tapping facility in
the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty
Natalegawa said. “If it’s confirmed, such action is not only a breach of
security, but also a serious violation of diplomatic norms and ethics,
and certainly not in tune with the spirit of friendly relations between
nations.”
The Asian leaders were reacting to a report this week in
the German magazine Der Spiegel and a Sydney Morning Herald article
Thursday that named cities
in which embassies are used for electronic surveillance by the United
States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — a group of
intelligence partners known as the “5-eyes.”
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