White House memo claims Alibaba is helping Chinese military target US – Financial Times

Alibaba provides tech support for Chinese military “operations” against targets in the US, according to intelligence cited in a White House national security memo raising concerns about the technology giant.

The official memo, provided to the Financial Times, includes declassified “top secret” intelligence on how the Chinese group supplies the People’s Liberation Army with capabilities that the White House believes threaten US security.

The claims, which the FT cannot independently verify, reflect growing US concerns about Chinese cloud services, artificial intelligence and Beijing’s ability to access and exploit sensitive data in the US. The allegations against Alibaba are just the latest concerns raised by US officials and lawmakers over Chinese tech companies with purported links to the PLA.

According to the White House memo, Alibaba also provides the Chinese government and PLA with access to customer data that includes IP addresses, WiFi information and payment records, as well as different AI-related services. It said employees had transferred knowledge about “zero-day” exploits to the PLA — previously unknown software vulnerabilities that developers had no opportunity to patch.

Alibaba rejected the claims, saying: “The claims purportedly based on US intelligence that was leaked by your source are complete nonsense. This is plainly an attempt to manipulate public opinion and malign Alibaba.”

Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the company has ever had a relationship with the PLA.

Militaries around the world depend more and more on companies for a variety of tech needs, particularly as weapons systems are linked via computer networks and increasingly rely on cloud computing services.

For example, the Pentagon in 2022 awarded contracts for cloud computing services to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle.

The memo did not specify what the PLA is alleged to be targeting in the US. But the office of the director of national intelligence this year said China was able to compromise American infrastructure in ways it could deploy in a conflict with the US.

In a threat assessment in March, it said Chinese cyber campaigns, including an unprecedented ongoing penetration of US telecom networks dubbed Salt Typhoon, showed the “growing breadth and depth” of its capabilities.

Asked about the memo, a US official said the administration “takes these threats very seriously and is working day and night to mitigate the ongoing and potential risks and effects from [cyber] intrusions that use untrusted vendors”.

The White House and CIA both declined to comment.

The note, dated November 1, came immediately after President Donald Trump met President Xi Jinping in South Korea and agreed a broad truce on trade curbs for one year.

The White House declined to say if it planned to respond to the activities claimed in the memo. Some lawmakers have previously urged the administration to take measures against the group.

John Moolenaar, the Republican head of the House China committee, told the FT that the claims about Alibaba tallied with his committee’s long-standing concerns about Chinese companies being subject to Chinese laws that remove protections for customers, regardless of where they are operating in the world.

“The federal government and industry must take steps to protect the American people and eliminate Chinese companies’ access to our markets and innovation,” Moolenaar said.

In May, US lawmakers including Moolenaar urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to delist 25 Chinese groups, including Alibaba, over concerns about alleged ties to the PLA. They cited a Chinese government programme known as “military-civil fusion”, alleging it requires companies to share technology with the PLA.

Dennis Wilder, the former head of China analysis at the CIA, said the breadth and depth of the PLA’s cyber intrusion operations, beyond its traditional cyber espionage attacks, had reached an “unprecedented” level.

“The PLA is conducting widespread and daily intrusions against US critical infrastructure, including airports, seaports and other critical transportation nodes of US forces in the Pacific, but also in the continental US,” said Wilder. “The goal is to lay the groundwork for its strategy of ‘system destruction warfare’ that it would implement in a military conflict.”   

General Sir Richard Barrons, a retired British general who was one of the drafters of the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review, said militaries around the world increasingly relied on private tech groups for services and R&D that would previously have been done in-house.

“It’s not just that these companies have all the technology and R&D, they have all the money too,” said Barrons, who now heads Universal Defence, a London consultancy.

Asked about the memo, the Chinese embassy in Washington accused the US of a “complete distortion of facts”, saying Beijing was improving laws and regulations to protect personal privacy and data in the AI realm.

“The Chinese government attaches great importance to, and protects, data privacy and security in accordance with the law, and has never and will never require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in foreign countries in violation of local laws,” the embassy said.

Additional reporting by Charles Clover in London