Bangkok: A Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper has published an article warning that Australia's "interference" in the flashpoint waters of the South China Sea may prompt China to "adopt strong countermeasures which will seriously impact Australian economic development".

Zhang Ye, a researcher at the Chinese Naval Research Institute in Beijing, wrote in the hawkish Global Times that Australia's "kissing up to the United States" will "poison its relations with China and shake up [the] foundation for its strategic balance between China and the US".

"Australia has changed its policy considerably. Its bigoted actions have jeopardised not only China's national interests but also Australian long-term interests, bringing Canberra's structural contradictions and strategic dilemma to a worse level," Zhang wrote.

The comments come two weeks after China's top naval commander formally rebuked Australia's Chief of Navy, Tim Barrett, over Australia's policy on the waterways, where China and five other countries have overlapping territorial claims.