Australia has joined forces with the US, UK and Europe to expose details of China’s cyber activity.

Beijing is accused of hacking the Microsoft Exchange in January this year, affecting thousands of businesses around the globe.

While most countries knew China was involved, its taken until now to publicly call it out.

Federal Defence Minister Peter Dutton said they are calling on China to act responsibly in cyber space.

“This is a worldwide attempt to expose what China is up to online,” he told Gareth Parker.

“It’s regrettable that they are keeping the company of countries like North Korea, Russia and Iran.

“These aren’t the actions of a friendly country and we need to be very careful in the way in which we work online and how we share information and intelligence.”

Premier Mark McGowan has previously been critical of the federal government’s language when dealing with one of our biggest trading partners.

Mr Dutton said while WA has strong trade ties with the country, China must be called-out.

“I don’t live in some parallel universe, I deal with the facts, and the facts are that China is conducting themselves in a way that is not in our national interest.”

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