The strengthening of cyber capabilities is an important part of China's military modernization, the government said on Wednesday, warning that the internet should not become "a new battlefield".
China, home to the largest number of internet users, has long called for greater cooperation among countries in developing and governing the internet, while reiterating the need to respect "cyber sovereignty".
But Beijing, which operates the world's most sophisticated online censorship mechanism known elsewhere as the "Great Firewall", has also signaled that it wants to rectify "imbalances" in the way standards across cyberspace are set.
"The building of national defense cyberspace capabilities is an important part of China's military modernization," the Foreign Ministry and the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's internet regulator, said in a strategy paper on the ministry's website.
China will help the military in its important role of "safeguarding national cyberspace sovereignty, security and development interests" and "hasten the building of cyberspace capabilities", they said, but also called on countries to "guard against cyberspace becoming a new battlefield".
Countries should not engage in internet activities that harm nations' security, interfere in their internal affairs, and "should not engage in cyber hegemony".