US should 'correct its ways': Chinese FM

China urged the US on Wednesday to "correct its ways," after the US Senate said in a report that the CIA had misled the White House and the American public about its torture of detainees and acted more brutally and pervasively than it acknowledged.

"China has consistently opposed torture. We believe that the US side should reflect on this, correct its ways and earnestly respect and follow the rules of related international conventions," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily briefing.

The torture report has received a great deal of attention in the Chinese media as of Wednesday.

State television station China Central Television covered the story during its early morning program, with the anchorman calling the report "a heavy slap in the face of the American government," which has long portrayed itself to be a defender of human rights.

The Internet has also been abuzz with the news, with users of Chinese social media passionately debating the report's content.

Observers attributed the Chinese public's interest in the report to the blatant contradictions between what the US said it did and the reality of its practices.

Netizens criticized the interrogation techniques used by the CIA, which not only violated international human rights laws but also ran contrary to the values the US claims to uphold.

However, opinion was divided, with some saying that although the way in which the US treated these suspects was wrong, counter-terrorism efforts should continue.

The 6,000-page report, released by the US Senate Intelligence Committee, took five years to produce and is based on more than 6 million internal CIA documents.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's review concluded that the intelligence agency failed to disrupt a single plot despite torturing Al Qaeda and other captives in secret facilities worldwide between 2002 and 2006, when George W. Bush was president.

The CIA interrogation program was devised by two agency contractors to squeeze information from suspects after the 9/11 attacks. The interrogations took place in countries that included Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.

Some captives were deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, at times with their hands shackled above their heads, and the report recorded cases of simulated drowning or "waterboarding" and sexual abuse, including "rectal feeding" or "rectal hydration" without any documented medical need.

Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, speaking on the Senate floor after releasing the report, said the techniques in some cases amounted to torture and that "the CIA's actions, a decade ago, are a stain on our values, and on our history."

The UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, said the report revealed a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration" and called for the prosecution of US officials.

The CIA dismissed the findings, saying its interrogations secured valuable information. Many Republicans criticized the decision by Democratic lawmakers to release the report, which was put together by the committee's Democratic majority, saying it would put Americans at risk.