According to the latest documents revealed by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the NSA has spied on several former Chinese leaders, multiple government departments and banks, with China's telecom giant, Huawei, being a core target for the NSA's snooping in China.

Chinese leaders' official communications and the internal information of various Chinese government departments should be classified as China's state secrets, and as such protected by Chinese law. In the information age, they also belong to China's information sovereignty. The United States is well aware of this, as Washington has been heavily criticizing China for the same reason, claiming Chinese-based hackers have infiltrated US government and company networks.

Even when it comes to its company information, the US regards it as a jewel of the greatest value. Protecting the country's intellectual property rights has become a sacred mission of the US government. So, protecting the country's information sovereignty, especially protecting its state security confidentiality has become the highest duty of the US government.

China's state secrets are also worthy of being protected. If such US information is confidential and inaccessible to other countries, why shouldn't China's confidential information be inaccessible to other countries, including the US, in the same way?

Obviously, with regard to network security issues, the US has been pursuing an imperialist policy that all other countries must respect the US' information sovereignty, while Washington doesn't need to respect other countries' information frontiers.

No country can accept such hubris and selfishness. It is unacceptable, not only for the Brazilian president and German chancellor, but also for China and other countries that are victims of the NSA's surveillance. The reason that China opposes the US' violation of its information sovereignty is the same reason the US opposes violations of its information sovereignty. Any snooping and stealing of information will reveal China's secrets, which will seriously damage the country's political security, national defense construction and economic development.

The Chinese government has asked the US to explain why it intruded into China's information territory. It can be predicted that Washington will not explain the NSA's spying, nor apologize to Beijing. It will not compensate China for any losses resulting from its spying, nor promise not to engage in such activities in the future. Therefore, there is no reason the US can criticize other countries if they start targeting the US in the same way, nor should it expect other countries not to retaliate against its network infringements.

In consideration of the complexity of the international counterterrorism campaign, it is understandable that the US or other countries engaged in some cross-border actions to strike against terrorists. But in the name of counterterrorism the US is wantonly engaged in spying on other countries' information, which completely goes beyond the legitimacy of cooperation against terrorism. If the US wants to know the suspicious financial activities of some other countries' people, it can make a request to related governments and ask for information sharing within a legal and reasonable framework, rather than indiscriminately infringing others' information sovereignty without consultation. If the US argues it has the right to do so, it will have to tolerate other countries having the same right.

Directly intruding into other countries' electronic frontiers to carry out surveillance over foreign leaders has nothing to do with anti-terrorism. Washington's large-scale, high-level global monitoring campaign reflects its ambition and strong desire to control the whole world. In its eyes, there is no concept of national equality and mutual respect for sovereignty. The US' fundamental purpose is to maintain its long-term global dominance and guard against the rise of other potential powers. In fact, the US' hegemonic acts in disregard of other countries' legitimate confidentiality will eventually make it the biggest victim of electronic surveillance. The US government should know that not every US citizen likes hegemonism. If the US government calls for efforts against terrorism, it will win support from the US people and the international community. But when the US is engaged in shady cyber spying, there will be idealists, such as Snowden, willing to disclose its secret monitoring programs regardless of personal safety, and the US also has to face widespread opposition from various countries.

The US government should also be aware that in cyberspace its leading technology may not always be No 1. If the US takes the lead to snoop information today, it may find itself suffering losses the most tomorrow.

The author is associate dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

(China Daily 03/29/2014 page5)