MANILA, Aug 2: China took aim on Thursday at efforts to counter its dramatic military rise, taking centre stage at Asia's main security forum to insist it would be a force for peace and stability.

At closed-door talks in Manila, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi criticised what he called a “Cold War mentality” aimed at gaining military superiority at the expense of mutual cooperation.

“Under the influence of the Cold War mentality, there is a trend towards building up bilateral military alliances to gain absolute military superiority,” he said, according to a copy of his speech.

“This undermines political mutual trust, causes uncertainty to regional security and has become a source of concern to people,” Yang said.

The minister did not refer to specific countries, although China's drive for a bigger and stronger military has jangled nerves in the United States and across Asia.

A budding defence pact between the United States, Japan and Australia has been widely viewed as an attempt at counter-balancing Beijing's growing clout in the region, but Yang said China's ambitions were peaceful.

He said Beijing's role in hosting the North Korea disarmament talks and its thawing relations with Japan were signs that the Asian giant was emerging as a responsible regional negotiator.

“China ... is actively involved in promoting peace, development, cooperation and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region,” he told officials from the United States, Europe and Asia at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

“We have consistently acted in the spirit of setting aside differences to expand common ground and call for seeking peaceful and negotiated solutions to historical issues and current disputes,” he said.

He said that Asia and the Pacific had been relatively peaceful since the end of the Cold War, which had led the region's nations to develop “healthy” relations.

“They have abandoned the old thinking on, and logic of, security based on mutual suspicion, raw power and imposing one's own values and ideologies on others,” he said.

China has the world's largest armed forces, with 2.3 million men and women in uniform. In March, it approved a 2007 defence budget of 46 billion dollars, a 17.8 per cent increase over the year before.

President Hu Jintao, in a speech on Wednesday marking the 80th anniversary of China's People's Liberation Army, promised even more funding for the military.

Yang vowed China would continue to work within bodies such as the ARF and called for deeper international cooperation to address security challenges such as terrorism and infectious diseases.

“Security has acquired new dimensions and security risks are mounting. This has broadened the scope for security cooperation,” Yang said.—AFP