Counterintelligence

After Report on Killings of C.I.A. Sources, China Asserts Right to Defend Itself

The Chinese government has the obligation to defend its national security and the legal authority to protect China’s interests, a government spokeswoman said on Monday, the first official response to a New York Times report on the dismantling of C.I.A. espionage operations in China.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying, speaking during a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing, did not confirm or deny The Times’s report that for two years starting in 2010, more than a dozen C.I.A. sources were killed or imprisoned, crippling United States intelligence gathering in China.

“I am not aware of the details of that report,” Ms. Hua said, according to an official transcript. “But I can tell you that China’s national security organ is investigating and handling organizations, personnel and activities that endanger China’s national security and interests and fully perform its duty with the authorization by law.”