"We have always maintained that as the country with the strongest military power in the world, the violation of the ABM treaty and the anti-missile defense system will do no good to the global and regional strategic balance," foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

Without commenting on Tuesday's test firing, Zhu called on Washington to end its attempts at amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a step seen as clearing the legal way for construction of the NMD.

"We urge the relevant country to approach the will of the international community in real earnest, think before it takes action and abandon the above mentioned plans," Zhu said.

A US interceptor missile on Tuesday failed in an attempt to hit a target missile over the Pacific in what has been seen as a setback for the Pentagon program.

Meanwhile, news of the failed test was carried in most Chinese papers, with the People's Liberation Army Daily calling the failure "a 100 million dollar waste."

"The US is trying to spread American values to all corners of the world by using human rights, ethnic and religious issues as the reasons why it waves the big stick," an editorial in the paper said.

"And because of this the US military cannot remain idle and busily sets up new camps in battlefield after battlefield," it said.

The paper further derided US military efforts to maintain a force capable of "winning two major local wars at the same time," saying such a policy was aimed at maintaining America's superpower status, "repressing those countries that 'don't listen' and attracting those that want protection."

Using a phrase often used by Mao Zedong, the paper said this "submit and prosper, or resist and die" method "is greatly out of tune with the times".

The leading People's Daily refrained from reporting the failed test while devoting an entire page to analyzing the upcoming Russian presidential elections and the policies of the successor to retired president Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin.

China and Russia sealed their "strategic partnership" last month when Yeltsin met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a Beijing summit during which they condemned US plans for the NMD and strongly indicated in a joint communique they would jointly respond to any eventual NMD.

Leading Chinese foreign affairs experts said in interviews with the paper that continued friction between Moscow and Washington would serve to solidify Sino-Russian ties, while praising Yeltsin for eight years of smooth development between the two neighbors.

"In order to contain the US and NATO hegemony and power politics, push forward and establish progress toward a multi-polar world, it is a necessary choice for Russia to continue to develop its strategic partnership with China," Dong Shaoyang, a Russian expert told the daily.

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