Philippine ex-president Fidel Ramos said Wednesday that China's recent assertiveness over sea disputes was motivated by a desire to challenge US power, as he predicted more tensions to come.

On a visit to Washington, Ramos described China and the United States as "shadow-boxing" over the South China Sea and East China Sea where Beijing has growing friction with countries including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan.

"China's proximate aim, it seems to me, is to limit American freedom of access" and "erode the credibility of Washington's security guarantees to the East Asian states, including and especially the Philippines," Ramos, who was president from 1992 to 1998, said at the Heritage Foundation think-tank.

"We, where we come from, expect South China Sea tensions to continue because the root cause is really China's perceived need to break out from under the strategic dominance of the Western allies," Ramos said.

The Pentagon on Thursday revealed that in the spring it suffered one of its largest losses ever of sensitive data in a cyberattack by a foreign government. It's a dramatic example of why the military is pursuing a new strategy emphasizing deeper defenses of its computer networks, collaboration with private industry and new steps to stop "malicious insiders."

William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense, said in a speech outlining the strategy that 24,000 files containing Pentagon data were stolen from a defense industry computer network in a single intrusion in March. He offered no details about what was taken but in an interview before the speech he said the Pentagon believes the attacker was a foreign government. He didn't say which nation.

China criticized the U.S. on Tuesday over a senator's call for multilateral negotiations to resolve festering territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said only those countries with territorial claims in the vast resource-rich waters should get involved in such discussions.
"We hope countries not related to the disputes over the South China Sea will respect the efforts of directly related countries to resolve the issue through direct negotiations," Hong told a regularly scheduled news conference.
China, which claims the entire sea and its island groups, will assert its rights and interests but won't use force to resolve disputes or impede navigation, Hong said.

US defence firm Lockheed Martin says it has come under a significant cyber-attack, which took place last week.

Few details were available, but Lockheed said its security team had detected the threat quickly and ensured that none of its programmes had been compromised.

The Pentagon said it is working to establish the extent of the breach.

Lockheed makes fighter jets, warships and multi-billion dollar weapons systems sold worldwide.

Lt Col April Cunningham, speaking for the US defence department, said the impact on the Pentagon was "minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect".

The head of Venezuela's state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said the "imperialist" United States could "go to hell" after it slapped sanctions on the company over alleged ties to Iran.

"The imperialists can go to hell. Their sanctions mean nothing us. No one is going to impose this kind of action against us," Rafael Ramirez, who also serves as energy and petroleum minister, said late Wednesday.

"We do what best serves the people of Venezuela and what best serves the interests of the Venezuelan state," he added.

The United States imposed sanctions this week on PDVSA and six other companies -- including firms from Singapore and Israel -- that it accused of supplying gasoline and petroleum products to Iran.

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