SAN FRANCISCO – US officials confronted the Chinese government in Beijing in April about a sweeping cyber espionage campaign through which Chinese hackers have broken in to dozens of American critical infrastructure organisations, a senior US cyber official said.

American officials say China, under the campaign named Volt Typhoon, aims to leverage the access it has gained into US organisations in the event of a war or conflict – a nod to escalating US-China tensions over Taiwan. The Chinese have previously dismissed such allegations as groundless.