ISTANBUL

China on Monday said Washington's “smear campaigns” against it are an “excuse to control” Latin America, as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Panama Canal faces “ongoing threats from China," state media reported.

“The remarks from the US officials are filled with ideological bias and cold war mentality, and they represent outright lies and fallacies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing.

“Who views Latin America and the Caribbean as its 'backyard,' resurrecting and promoting new Monroe Doctrine in Latin America? ... And who allows the unchecked flow of small arms and ammunition into Latin America's zones of peace?” Lin asked.

Hegseth claimed China’s military has "too large of a presence in the Western Hemisphere."

Lin said China-Latin America cooperation was “a form of South-South cooperation, based solely on mutual support without geopolitical calculations.”

Hegseth said Panama should secure the Panama Canal with support from America, and not China.

The US defense chief argued that the "malign influence of the Communist Chinese" in the canal, or canal area does not serve Panamanian interests or American interests.

However, Lin said: “China's engagement with Latin American and Caribbean countries has always been guided by the principles of equality and mutual benefits. We never seek spheres of influence, nor target any third party.”

“The repeated smear campaigns and attacks against China by the US and exaggeration of the ‘China threat’ are merely an excuse to control Latin America and the Caribbean, and this kind of rhetoric is destined to fail.”

President Donald Trump claims China controls Panama Canal and has vowed the US will take back the waterway, which is “vital” to national security.

Panama has administered the US-built canal since it relinquished it to the Central American country in 1999.