Hate crimes against people of Asian descent in the United States increased by more than 73 percent in 2020, newly republished data by the FBI said on Monday.

People take part in a protest against Asian hate in New York, the United States, on March 21, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua)

The FBI hate crime statistics for 2020 were originally released in August, but due to a technical issue with the submission of Ohio’s data, the FBI modified the date following the release.

Data showed that the number of attacks against Americans of Asian heritage rose to 279 in 2020 from 161 in 2019, likely confirming a trend reported by the community since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 61 percent of hate crime victims in the US were targeted because of the offenders’ race, ethnicity or ancestry bias, according to FBI data.

Besides race bias, 20 percent of the victims were targeted because of the offenders' sexual-orientation bias and 13.3 percent because of the offenders' religious bias, the data showed.

Of all the 6,780 known offenders, 55.1 percent were white and 21.2 percent were Black or African American, the FBI said in the release.

ABC News cited an official from the FBI, saying that the bureau has taken a victim-centered approach to hate crimes.

Jay Greenberg, deputy assistant director of the FBI's criminal division, said that because a hate crime is defined as a violent or property crime with a bias motivation, that crime could be categorized a number of different ways.

"We would like the public to reach out to us if they believe that they are a victim of a hate crime. It's not for the public to make that determination," said Greenberg. "We will work with our state and local partners and help determine how best to investigate that."

(Compiled by Zhang Jian)