"Saying that the Chinese military has made cyber attacks on the networks of foreign governments is groundless and irresponsible and are a result of ulterior motives," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told journalists.

"The Chinese government has all along opposed and prohibited any cyber crimes, we have explicit laws and regulations in this regard."

Jiang was responding to news reports carried by The Times and The Independent newspapers in London that Chinese computer hackers had infiltrated British government networks.

The reports come a day after US President George W. Bush said he may bring up the issue of suspected Chinese cyber-attacks on the US defence department when he meets Chinese President Hu Jintao in Sydney on Thursday.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that several nations and groups had been trying to break into the US military's computer system, after the Financial Times reported China's military had successfully hacked into the network in June.

Jiang on Tuesday denied that specific accusation.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also raised similar concerns when she visited Beijing last week after press reports said China had conducted cyber espionage on government offices in Berlin.

The Times quoted an unidentified British government source as saying that China was engaged in "hostile intelligence activities."

"Instead of using the old-fashioned methods, they are focusing on electronic means to hack into systems to discover Britain's defence and foreign policy secrets, and they are technologically pretty advanced and adept at it," the source said.

Jiang said the Chinese government was willing to cooperate with the international community to investigate the alleged attacks, but so far no requests had been made.

"As far as I am aware, Chinese police have not received any requests from relevant countries on cooperative investigations," she said.

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