Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU)?based in the largest metropolis of eastern China told Xinhua Tuesday that the New York Times' Monday report about the university's information security school was groundless.

After the Shanghai-based university refuted rumors about the alleged cyber attack against Google, the world's leading web search engine, by the university, the American newspaper said Monday that the information security school under?it had ties with the Chinese military.

The university said the allegation by the newspaper was unfounded.

Liu Yuxiang, head of public relations for the university, told Xinhua that SJTU was jointly built by the Ministry of Education and the municipal government of Shanghai, without any military backing.

Liu said the university had set high academic and moral standards for its teachers and students, and opposed cyber crime.

The New York Times' accusation that the Google cyber attack hackers were from Chinese schools was completely groundless, Liu stressed.

The New York Times has filed several reports recently claiming the cyber attacks on Google and other American firms last year have been traced to Shanghai Jiaotong University and privately-run Lanxiang Vocational School (Lanxiang) in east China's Shandong Province.

Google said last month that it might pull out of the Chinese market, citing its services had been hacked by sources originating in China and that it disagreed with some Chinese government policies.

In the latest report, the New York Times insisted that Lanxiang had ties with the Chinese military as it was founded on land donated by the army and had sent graduates to join the army.

"We had indeed used abandoned barracks for teaching venues when our school was founded in 1984, but the barracks were not a 'donation' because we must pay rent regularly to use it," Li said.

"We have already moved out of the old barracks and built our own new teaching buildings," he said.

Currently, Lanxiang has more than 20,000 students learning vocational skills such as cooking, auto repair and hairdressing.

"Like any other country, our school graduates can join the army if they so wish. But you cannot say a school has a military background just because some of its graduates are servicemen," Li said.