Former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman described the hacking charges announced this week against five Chinese military officers by the Justice Department as "symbolic" and said the United States will need to get more serious about the actions it takes to counter China's alleged cyber spying in the future.

"This is symbolic. You put five PLA members in a most wanted poster - we're not going to make any headway on this until such time as we really target market access in this country," he told ABC's Martha Raddatz on "This Week." "They want access to our market, they want to go public on our stock exchange, they want access to our banks and our financial services."

Huntsman said the U.S. needed to become more serious about its responses beyond "symbolic measures."

"While this will ratchet up the level of discussion, I don't think it's going to do much to really stop the activity that's going on," he said.

Huntsman served as Utah's Republican governor before leaving that post to serve as ambassador to China under President Obama. He later left his position as ambassador and ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

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