China has criticized the arrests of four people in the United States on charges of spying for the communist nation, calling the allegations "groundless."
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Liu Jianchao urged Washington to abandon what he described as "Cold War thinking," and do more to contribute to the mutual trust and friendship between the two nations.
The U.S. Justice Department announced the arrests on Monday. The department said a civilian military employee, Gregg William Bergersen, provided classified information to Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Kuo is accused of passing on the information to a Chinese official through a fourth person arrested in the case, Yu Xin Kang, a Chinese citizen who resides in the United States.
In a separate case, a former Boeing engineer has been arrested for allegedly passing stolen trade secrets to China.
The Justice Department says Chinese native Dongfan "Greg" Chung, a naturalized U.S. citizen who resided in California, stole trade secrets from Boeing relating to the space shuttle, C-17 military transport aircraft and the Delta IV rocket.