China pushed back Monday against the Pentagon's latest assessment of its military, saying the annual report undermines strategic mutual trust between the two countries.

The Defense Department's annual congressional report on military and security developments in China, released Friday, notes that China has "demonstrated a willingness to tolerate higher levels of tension in the pursuit of its interests, especially in pursuit of its territorial claims in the East and South China Sea."

It also notes that while China seeks to avoid direct conflict with the United States, it employs "coercive tactics short of armed conflict" that include using law enforcement vessels to enforce maritime claims in ways that fall short of provoking outright conflict.

The Pentagon report also states that China continued in 2015 to use ships and aircraft to patrol near the contested Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, in an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan.

China paused its land reclamation efforts in the Spratly Islands in late 2015 after adding more than 3,200 acres of land to seven archipelago features in the South China Sea, the report states.

But a commentary piece published Monday on the website of China's state-run Xinhua news agency counters that the United States has no right to monitor the force development or military strategy of a sovereign country.

"China follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature," the commentary states. "Like any other country in the world, it has every legitimate reason to develop military forces to safeguard its sovereignty and peaceful development."

It also decries how the Pentagon report "smears China's legitimate activities in the East China Sea and South China Sea."

"It is Washington's pivot to Asia and its meddling in the waters of the Asia-Pacific that have stoked tensions in the South China Sea," the commentary states.

The Xinhua commentary also notes that China only spends about a quarter of what the United States forks out for defense.

"The great gap between the two countries' defense budgets easily reveals who is more likely to be a 'military threat,'" the commentary states.