China's response through Global Times, state media rather than a formal diplomatic channel, is a deliberate framing choice. Engaging the Singaporean government directly would treat the attribution as a bilateral dispute; routing the rebuttal through state media keeps it at the level of contested reporting. The language "baseless smears" tracks identically with how Beijing has responded to Five Eyes attributions of similar APT activity, which tells threat intelligence analysts something about the centralized messaging strategy even if it reveals nothing new about the threat actor.
China's response through Global Times, state media rather than a formal diplomatic channel, is a deliberate framing choice. Engaging the Singaporean government directly would treat the attribution as a bilateral dispute; routing the rebuttal through state media keeps it at the level of contested reporting. The language "baseless smears" tracks identically with how Beijing has responded to Five Eyes attributions of similar APT activity, which tells threat intelligence analysts something about the centralized messaging strategy even if it reveals nothing new about the threat actor.