According to reports, Australian intelligence has come to the conclusion that China is responsible for a cyberattack on its parliament and three biggest political parties before the General Election in May earlier this year,  five people privy to the matter have revealed. The attack in February, China currently is the largest importer of Australia's iron ore. Officials from Australia's Cyber Intelligence Agency felt that publicly accusing China may be risky for trade ties.

Revelation of Cyber Intelligence agency

Reportedly, in March, Australia's Cyber Intelligence Agency (ASD) submitted that China's Ministry of State Security was the one to be blamed for the attack, five anonymous people connected to the matter have said. The intelligence report also included references from the Department of Foreign Affairs which recommended that findings be kept a secret to avoid scuttling of trade ties with Beijing, two people said. In an answer to the question, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's office refused to comment on the attack, the findings of the report or whether Australia discussed the matter of cyber attack with China behind closed doors. The Intelligence agency too refused to comment.

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China refutes allegations

Meanwhile, China's Foreign Ministry denied any participation in any sort of cyber attack and said that the Internet was full of theories that were hard to track. According to reports, China's foreign ministry said that while investigating and deciding the type of online incidents there must be full proof of the facts, other than that it will just be creating rumors and deriding others, putting tags on people randomly. Ministry said that China too is a target of internet attacks. The statement further added that it hopes that Australia can meet China intermediately do more for the interest of mutual trust and cooperation between the two nations. 

As of now, China is Australia's largest trade partner in topping the Australian iron ore import, coal and agricultural goods, purchasing more than a third of the country's total exports and partnering in cultural ties by sending more than a million tourists and students to Australia each year. One official connected to the matter added that if it were to publicly blame China over the attack then there will be a real chance to damage the economy. 

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The cyber attack

Australia in February, reportedly, revealed that hackers infiltrated the network of the Australian National Parliament. Australian PM at that time had said that attack was sophisticated and was probably carried out by a foreign government. He did not name any suspect that might be involved then. However, when the hack was noticed, Australian parliamentarians and their staff were informed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate to change their credentials as soon as possible, according to a parliamentary statement at the time. The intelligence agency investigation than had almost immediately concluded that hackers also had accessed the network of ruling Liberal Party, its coalition partner the Nationals and the opposition Labor party according to reports.
 
The timing of the attack was three months before Australia's election and two years after cyber-attack on the Democratic Party in the United States 2016 election which then had raised concerns of interfering in the election but as per source information, there was no evidence that information accessed by hackers was used. The election saw Morrison and coalition winning marginally.

The China Factor

In recent years Australia has increased its efforts to counter China's growing clout in the country using certain policies that have made the trade with China a victim. In the year 2017, Canberra had banned political funding from overseas and added a condition that required lobbyists to register any connections to foreign governments. Almost a year later, ASD had run a risk assessment of 5G which made Canberra ban Chinese telecom companies like Huawei from its still under-development 5G network.