China developing internet for offensive operations: Pentagon

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China is improving its capacity for operations in cyberspace and developing capabilities to use Internet for offensive operations, the Pentagon said on Friday.

"China is investing in not only capabilities to better defend their networks but also they're looking at ways to use cyber for offensive operations," Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Asia Pacific Security Affairs David Helvey told reporters.

Halvey said China is engaging in cyber activity focused on computer network exploitation.

"That continues to be a concern of ours, and we've raised it and we've talked to the Chinese about it, most recently during the Strategic Security Dialogue in Beijing," he said.

Noting that this is being raised at the highest level, Halvey said this is something that the US continues to pay very careful attention to.

"It's something that seems to be sustained, and I think their continued efforts in this area reflect the importance that they're placing on developing capabilities for cyber warfare," he said in response to a question.

"We continue to see China expressing interest in making investments to improve their capacity for operations in cyberspace, and that is something that we pay very, very careful attention to. There is the potential for these types of operations to be very disruptive, disruptive not only in a conflict, could be very disruptive to the United States, but other countries as well.

"I mean, that's one of the things about military operations in cyberspace, that there can be cascading effects that are hard to predict," Halvey said.

"We do have concerns about this, and this is why we've created joint military and civilian platforms, like the Strategic Security Dialogue, to be able to talk about issues that we view as having potential for friction in the US-China relationship. Cyber is one of those areas. We'd also be like to be able to talk to China about space and nuclear and missile defense areas as well as part of the Strategic Security Dialogue," he said.