Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday made a thinly veiled criticism of the United States over its "Cold War mindset" and "hegemonic acts" while defending China's rise as a "historical inevitability."

Wang made the remarks during the second and last day of his trip to Seoul, amid an intensifying Sino-US rivalry over trade, technology and maritime security that has put South Korea in an increasingly difficult diplomatic position.

"The Cold War mindset is already behind the times and hegemonic acts cannot win the hearts of the people," Wang said during a luncheon meeting with South Korean politicians, businesspeople, former government officials and journalists. 

"China's rise is a historical inevitability and no one can preclude that," he added without explicitly naming the US.

The top Chinese diplomat also said that there are "people who use various methods to smear and restrain China and deliberately make bad remarks about the prospects of development" for the world's second largest economy.

"Behind these, there are an ideological prejudice and arrogance of power politics, but these will, after all, end in a failure," he added.

In response to a reporter's question later, Wang also expressed displeasure over the installation of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery on the peninsula, repeating the claim that the US has deployed the anti-missile system to "target China."

A day earlier, Wang had a meeting with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and criticized "unilateralism" and "hegemonic acts" in an apparent swipe at Washington. (Yonhap)