China condemns Pentagon's "Cold War thinking"

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday condemned the annual Pentagon report to the U.S. Congress on Chinese military power, saying it was a distortion of the facts, interfered in the country's internal affairs and showed "Cold War thinking".

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang added that Beijing had made "solemn representations" to Washington about the report and also denied Beijing was engaged in cyberwarfare.

"This U.S. report advocates the China threat theory and is seriously not in accordance with the facts and interferes in China's internal affairs," Qin told a news conference.

"We demand the U.S. abandons Cold War thinking and correctly recognises China and China's development and revises the mistaken ways of the report," he added. "We are extremely dissatisfied."

The Pentagon report, released on Monday, said China was developing weapons that could disable its enemies' space technology, such as satellites.

It added that "numerous" intrusions into computer networks around the world, including some owned by the U.S. government, in the past year seem to have originated in China.

Qin denied China was involved, saying his country was also a victim of hackers.

"We hope related countries can work together to tackle this problem. If the U.S. has an accusation to make, it should produce the evidence," he said. Earlier on Tuesday, China unveiled another double-digit rise in its defence budget, but stressed once more it adhered to a path of peaceful development and posed a no threat.

International experts estimate true military spenting could be as much as triple that of the stated figure, and the United States has called for China to be more transparent.