Hundreds of hackers, computer programmers and online security experts met in Beijing Wednesday to discuss ways to defend against an increasing number of cyberattacks.

Internet titan Microsoft has sponsored the two-day summit in the nation's capital, which has attracted about 300 participants from China and around the world to exchange ideas on improving cyberspace security, the China Daily said.

Among those attending the event are veteran hackers from the United States who have said they are on a quest to foster alliances with peers and dispel notions that all of their kindred spirits in China are cyberspies.

"We want to create understanding between the two hacker cultures," Colin Ames told AFP earlier this week at a gathering of hackers in Las Vegas.

"It's nonsense that all Chinese hackers are evil and hack for the government," said Ames, who is attending the XCon information security conference in Beijing.

China, which has been accused of waging cyberattacks on US Internet giant Google and the Indian government, has the world's largest online population of 420 million users, according to official data.

Canadian researchers claimed in April that a China-based online spying network leveraged popular web services such as Twitter, Google Groups and Yahoo! Mail to steal information from the New Delhi government and other Indian networks.

China denied the accusations, which were made weeks after Google effectively shut its search engine, in part over cyberattacks it claimed originated from China.