Mike McConnell, former chief of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has recently captured public attention with an unprecedented allegation that Chinese hackers "have penetrated every major corporation of any consequence in the US and taken information."

The speech, sensational but devoid of any concrete evidence, conjures up the infamous specter of McCarthyism, whose practitioners make personal attacks by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations based on unsubstantiated charges.

In the widely reported speech delivered at the University of Missouri on March 12, McConnell, who led the NSA from 1992 until 1996, claimed that Chinese hackers have implanted malware in the systems of all major US companies and such malware, never detected by the US side, allows the hackers to "extract information whenever they want."

Any sober mind would notice a puzzling self-contradiction in the assertion: If such malware has never been detected, how does McConnell find its presence in almost every major US companies? One can only guess that he commands even better resources than those working for various US official intelligence organizations and related business operators, which is most definitely not the case.

To make his China-demonizing allegations more convincing, the former intelligence chief resorted to the power of details by listing areas in which "Chinese are stealing" and "planning information for advanced concepts, windmills, automobiles, airplanes, space ships, manufacturing design, software."

As some of these areas happen to be the ones where China is rapidly catching up with the US, McConnell seems to imply that China's progress may come as a result of "cyber theft." But again, he publicized accusations with insufficient regard to evidence. By hyping the threat of communism with carefully-fabricated lies and ill-intended exaggerations, Joseph Raymond McCarthy came to the height of his political career at the expense of a troubled society in the 1950s.

If he were alive, he would find in McConnell an up-to-date disciple at a time when the US seeks to cement its dominance in the cyber world.

With the aim of ultimately dictating all rules in the cyberspace, the US has repeatedly, often groundlessly, accused China of violations, but rarely made direct response to widespread concerns over appalling revelations of its cyber spying programs.

As a key figure once at the center of the US intelligence network, McConnell knows why Washington seeks to portray China as the top villain in the cyber world, despite a raft of findings by various institutions suggest that the US is easily the world's biggest hacker. McConnell's "China threat" speech seems reckless, but it is a deliberate effort to cater to US desire to always discredit China in regard to cyber security.

The author is a writer with the Xinhua News Agency. The article first appeared on Xinhua. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn