Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a veiled warning to the United States on Wednesday, saying countries should not build up military alliances in Asia, even as Beijing feuds with several neighbours.

Speaking at an Asian regional security forum in Shanghai, Xi said a rising China would seek "peaceful" means to resolve territorial disputes.

Beijing has sought to counter Washington's foreign policy "pivot" to Asia, but it has also irritated Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines -- the latter two US allies -- with what those countries say are aggressive moves in separate maritime rows.

"To beef up an entrenched or military alliance targeted at a third party is not conducive to maintaining common security," Xi said, without naming names.

Washington's traditional allies in the Asia-Pacific region include Japan, where it has military bases and whose security it guarantees by treaty, and Australia.

China's official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday urged countries from outside Asia not to raise tensions.

"Players from other parts of the world need to play a constructive role. They should refrain from starting fires and stoking flames," it said in an editorial.

The relationship between Beijing and Washington has been strained in recent days after a US grand jury indicted five Chinese military officers on charges they hacked American computers to benefit Chinese state firms.

A state-owned Chinese newspaper took direct aim at the United States on the issue Wednesday, calling it a "mincing rascal" for playing the cyber-espionage victim.

In Asia, relations between China and Vietnam have worsened after Beijing sent a deep-water oil drilling rig into contested waters in the South China Sea earlier this month.

The move sparked violent protests in Vietnam in which at least four Chinese were killed as a Chinese state-owned company doubled the previous toll of its employees who died.

China and Japan have a long-running feud over disputed islands in the East China Sea, while the Philippines accuses China of reclaiming land on a disputed reef within its exclusive economic zone under a United Nations convention.

But Xi said: "China stays committed to seeking peaceful settlement of disputes with other countries over territorial sovereignty, and maritime rights and interests."

- Assert China's interests -

Xi was speaking at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a relatively obscure forum which China is seeking to build up in importance.

But Chinese organisers allowed media coverage of only Xi's address and a statement by the Turkish delegate before cutting off a live feed of speeches in the summit hall.

Vietnam belongs to the forum but Japan is only an observer, while the Philippines is not a member. The United States has observer status, preferring to work through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

Xi, who became president last year, has overseen a foreign policy which has sought to assert China's interests in both continental Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

On Tuesday, he and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin launched naval exercises off Shanghai, and on Wednesday they oversaw the signing of a huge and long-awaited gas deal between their two countries.

Under the 30-year contract between China's CNPC and Russia's Gazprom -- reportedly worth as much as $400 billion -- 38 billion cubic metres of gas could eventually be sent annually from Russia to energy-hungry China.

Xi told the forum that Beijing was interested in a regional security code, but gave no details.

Several countries have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, which is home to key shipping lanes and thought to contain vast energy reserves.

Earlier this month, Southeast Asian leaders expressed "serious concern" over worsening territorial disputes in the area, calling for a peaceful resolution and presenting a rare united front against Beijing.

Later Wednesday Vietnamese Prime Minister Ngyuen Tan Dung said after a meeting with Philippine President Benigno Aquino in Manila that China's dispatch of the oil rig had "seriously threatened peace".

Before the start of the forum, Xi shook hands with other state leaders attending, including Putin, Hassan Rouhani of Iran and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai.

But the live broadcast appeared to cut away when Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan shook hands with Xi.

The move by China's heavily-censored state television drew some laughter from Chinese journalists in the media centre, with one saying: "You can't see that."

Chinese pandas arrive in Malaysia after delay over MH370
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) May 21, 2014 - Malaysia welcomed a pair of pandas from China on Wednesday, after a month's delay caused by tensions over the Malaysian airliner which disappeared in March with mostly Chinese passengers aboard.

The eight-year-old pandas -- female Feng Yi ("Phoenix") and male Fu Wa ("Lucky") -- arrived in Kuala Lumpur to an honour guard of water cannon, after a flight from Chengdu in southwestern China where they were bred.

Feng Yi was briefly shown to the media before being whisked off to the national zoo with her prospective mate.

She initially retreated into her cage when exposed to daylight and the clatter of camera shutters, before gaining courage and curiously peering between the bars.

"May the arrival of these two precious icons of China contribute to building an everlasting friendship and sustainable cooperation" between Malaysia and China, environment minister Palanivel Govindasamy said at a welcoming ceremony.

The two countries agreed in 2012 that China would send the giant pandas for a 10-year stay, in Beijing's latest use of "panda diplomacy".

The pair were due to arrive on April 16 but Palanivel said at the time that before dispatching them, Beijing was awaiting further details on Flight MH370, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people including 153 Chinese on board.

The airline and Malaysia's government have come under withering public criticism in China over the loss, and the failure to find the plane that was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The Boeing 777 jet is believed to have have veered far off course for reasons unknown, before crashing into the remote Indian Ocean, where efforts are under way to locate its flight data recorders on the seabed.

Chinese relatives of the missing passengers have accused the Malaysian flag carrier and authorities of bungling the response to the plane's disappearance and withholding information.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Chinese authorities allowed relatives to stage a rare public protest at Malaysia's embassy in Beijing, suggesting official support for the criticism.

Malaysia's image in China took a further blow in April, when a Chinese tourist was kidnapped in an eastern state by gunmen believed to be Islamic militants from the southern Philippines. Malaysia has said ransom negotiations are under way.

China is Malaysia's largest trading partner and Kuala Lumpur has been courting closer ties with Beijing, declaring 2014 as "China-Malaysia Friendship Year" to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

The pandas have already caused controversy in Malaysia over plans to house them in special $7.7 million facility at the national zoo in Kuala Lumpur.

Environmentalists have said the money would have been better spent on conservation efforts for threatened Malaysian wildlife.

Palanivel said the panda pair would be given time to acclimatise before being shown to the public from the end of June.