Few eyebrows were arched when Google announced that the Gmail accounts of foreign officials and political dissidents were hacked by a source somewhere deep inside China. Or that Chinese-based cyberattacks topped an electronic break-in into the systems of sensitive US defence contractors. While there is no major country in world that does not attempt to pry open the electronic communications of other nations as part of the normal game of espionage, there are two reasons why China tends to raise greater concern than most.