China denied accusations by two U.S. lawmakers that it hacked into congressional computers, saying Thursday that as a developing country it wasn't capable of sophisticated cybercrime.

"Is there any evidence? ... Do we have such advanced technology? Even I don't believe it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly scheduled news conference.

This deflection is actually really quite insulting. They played the developing country card? Seriously?? What a load of crap!

Once information technology is widely available to people who take an interest in it, it's only a matter of time before there are hackers capable of preforming offensive information operations exist. The biggest factor I can think of, is if there are numbers of kids that have easy access to computers. The only universal thread in common with all the rockstar hackers I know is that they all got interested in the stuff real young, and just got more and more devastatingly capable as they matured and got more access to information and other hackers.

No one expects the avenues of Xinjiang to start flowing with 0day anytime soon.. But I assure you, places like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Guangdong have no shortage of capable hackers. Beijing damn well knows that, and isn't afraid to use it strategically.

Hackers sprout given enough people, time, technology, and access to information. They manifest themselves in different ways. If you have an economy that can support a technology sector, you get one. If you don't, you get cybercrime. If your military wants the capability to do information operations, it will get it. Even the DPRK was claiming to have infowar capabilities at one point..

China denies hacking into US computers - Yahoo! News