Beijing, May 20 (IANS): The Chinese military's mouthpiece newspaper has warned about the possibility of "Western hostile forces" using the internet to foment revolution in China.

"The internet has grown into an ideological battlefield, and whoever controls the tool will win the war," according to an editorial published in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily on Wednesday.

It stressed the need for cyber security measures to ensure "online ideological safety", euphemisms suggesting efforts to safeguard China's mainstream ideology, Xinhua cited the editorial as stating.

"Western hostile forces, along with a small number of Chinese 'ideological traitors', have maliciously attacked the Communist Party of China, and smeared our founding leaders and heroes with the help of the internet," it stated.

"Their fundamental objective is to confuse us with 'universal values', disturb us with 'constitutional democracy', and eventually overthrow our country through 'colour revolution'," it added, using a term commonly applied to revolutionary movements that first developed in the former Soviet Union in the early 2000s.

"Regime collapse that can occur overnight often starts from long-term ideological erosion," it warned.

The paper said the military should not only safeguard national sovereignty and security on traditional battlefields but also "protect ideological and political security on the invisible battleground of the Internet".