"I want to emphasise that this is only a US idea," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

"China always believes that we should make full use of the current various dialogue and cooperation mechanisms in the Asia Pacific region," he said.

"The territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu islands is the business of the two nations only."

Ma's statement was issued to clarify discussions between Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Vietnam last week.

Clinton said in Hanoi that she had told China and Japan that the United States was "more than willing to host a trilateral where we would bring Japan and China and their foreign ministers together to discuss a range of issues".

The Asian neighbours have been locked in their worst diplomatic spat for years after Tokyo arrested a Chinese trawler captain near the disputed islands in early September.

The arrest sparked outrage in Beijing, even after the captain's release. China cancelled a series of planned diplomatic meetings, and nationalistic protests have erupted in both countries.

Both sides claim the potentially resource-rich islets as their own, but Clinton angered Beijing by saying they fall within the scope of the US-Japan security alliance.

"The United States has never taken a position on sovereignty but we have made it very clear that the islands are part of our mutual treaty obligations and the obligation to defend Japan," she said.

Ma on Tuesday branded the US position as "extremely wrong".

"What the US should do is immediately rectify this wrong position," he said.

earlier related report
China state paper blasts Japan for nationalism
Beijing (AFP) Nov 2, 2010 - Japan is setting a "bad example" for Asia with its nationalistic attitude, stirring up trouble across the continent, a state Chinese newspaper said Tuesday as a row between Beijing and Tokyo rumbles on.

Asia's big powers have been at odds for two months since Tokyo's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain near disputed islands in the East China Sea, trading angry words and cancelling meetings between the two sides.

The Global Times -- a sister publication of the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily -- on Monday hit out at Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, branding him an "extremist", but on Tuesday took aim at Tokyo itself.

"Asia is witnessing an overflow of nationalism. Disputes over a few islands in the western Pacific will probably shift East Asia's attention from cooperation to antagonism," it said.

"Japan is setting a bad example in this process."

It accused Tokyo of failing to move past World War II. Memories of wartime atrocities linger in China and South Korea, where some residents say Japan has not done enough to make amends.

"It's a pity that the Japanese have not yet walked out of that war, and got rid of the narrow nationalism that once deeply influenced their fate," the Global Times said, pointing at visits by Japanese politicians to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo.

That expression of nationalism has "brought a sense of crisis" to the region, it said.

Both sides claim the potentially resource-rich islets, which are known as the Diaoyus in China and Senkakus in Japan, as their own. The islands are administered by Tokyo.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan were due to hold formal talks in Hanoi last week, but a diplomatic row ensued, and the pair only held brief informal discussions.

They pledged to speak at greater length in the future and to "continue making efforts on promoting a strategic, mutually beneficial relationship", according to a Japanese official.

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