China’s Embassy in Singapore has issued a strongly worded letter to The Straits Times, challenging a commentary that named the cyber threat group UNC3886 as “China-linked”.
According to the letter penned by First Secretary Song Chao and published on the newspaper’s forum on 5 August, the embassy accused the commentary of harbouring “preconceived” bias incompatible with journalistic fairness.
The letter takes particular aim at the commentary by deputy opinion editor Bhavan Jaipragas, “No idle punt: Why Singapore called out cyber saboteur UNC3886 by name”, which leaned heavily on statements from US cybersecurity firm Mandiant and US government officials.
It argues that the piece dismissed China’s denials too readily, thereby undermining the newspaper’s declared commitment to objectivity.
Reiterating Beijing’s stance against all forms of cybercrime, the embassy emphasised that China enforces strict legal measures to combat hacking activities.
“China does not encourage, support or condone hacking activities,” the letter states, adding that any credible allegations should be handled through proper legal channels.
The embassy further invited Singaporean authorities to share any “concrete evidence” linking China to UNC3886 via official diplomatic or legal avenues. It assured that any such evidence would be examined and addressed in accordance with Chinese law.
To illustrate China’s own experience as a cyber target, the letter cited a report by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre released on 3 April 2025.
The report detailed over 270,000 cyberattacks against the information systems of the Ninth Asian Winter Games in Harbin between 26 January and 14 February 2025.
Of those attacks, 170,000—or 63.24 per cent—originated from the United States, while 40,000 attacks, or 14.97 per cent, were traced to Singapore. “The data demonstrate that China also faces significant cyber threats from abroad,” the embassy letter asserts (NCVERC report, 3 April 2025).
The letter follows comments on 1 August by Singapore’s Coordinating Minister for National Security and Home Affairs, K Shanmugam, at the Cyber Security Agency’s Exercise Cyber Star.
Shanmugam stressed the care taken before naming any country in relation to a cyber incident: “When it comes to naming any country responsible for a cyber attack, we always think about it very carefully”.
His remarks came amid media and expert speculation linking UNC3886 to China, a claim the government has consistently declined to confirm.
Shanmugam noted that Singapore only releases information judged to be in the public interest and that “naming a specific country is not in our interest at this point in time”.
Earlier, on 18 July, Shanmugam had publicly identified UNC3886 as a “highly sophisticated threat actor” targeting Singapore, without attributing it to any state. This followed Mandiant’s labelling of the group as a “China-nexus espionage group”.
In turn, the Chinese embassy issued a statement on its official Facebook page on 19 July voicing “strong dissatisfaction” with reports linking UNC3886 to Beijing, denouncing them as “groundless smears” and reiterating that China itself is a major victim of cyberattacks.
Shanmugam has explained that Singapore chose to name the threat actor UNC3886—while withholding country attribution—because of the severity of its intrusion into Singapore’s critical infrastructure.
“Here, we said this is serious. They have gotten in. They are compromising a very serious critical infrastructure. Singaporeans ought to know about it”.
The government continues to monitor the cyber threat landscape and has not ruled out releasing further information if necessary to safeguard national interests.
In February 2022, the Government had said it would provide up to S$900 million in funding support to SMT over the next five years. Observers say this level of public support effectively renders The Straits Times a de facto state media outlet.
The funding, at up to S$180 million annually, was intended to help SMT sustain operations and invest in digital transformation.
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