Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control and Disarmament director Sha Zukang said US efforts to develop anti-missile missiles, known as the national missile defence (NMD) system, would have a formidable and adverse impact and tip the global balance.

"If such a balance and stability were shattered, the nuclear disarmament process would come to a grind or even be reversed," Sha wrote in the official China daily.

"It will only poison the atmosphere, undermine the conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament and breed a potential danger of an arms race," he said adding, "Who can then guarantee that other non-nuclear states will not go nuclear?"

On the other hand, Beijing had no immediate comment on a US report that China appeared to be constructing a missile-related facility at a base about 480 km from nationalist-ruled Taiwan.