China's decision to set up a State Security Committee is aimed at improving systems and strategies to ensure national security, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Wednesday.

The CPC Central Committee said in a Tuesday communiqué that the country is to set up the committee, but gave no further details.

"No doubt, if China sets up a State Security Committee, terrorists will be nervous, separatists will be nervous, and extremists will be nervous. In general, all those forces who tend to threaten or sabotage China's national security will feel nervous," said Qin at a regular press briefing.

Qin heckled a Japanese reporter who asked whether China's decision is related to Japan's plan for a similar council. "Are you trying to put Japan in that place?" Qin asked, alluding to the forces that will be nervous.

Japanese media, including Kyodo News and the Sankei Shimbun, said China setting up the State Security Committee has something to do with the China-Japan disputes over the Diaoyu Islands.

Zhou Qi, a research fellow on American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China's State Security Committee will probably focus on foreign relations and defense. "It will optimize the decision-making mechanism and systemically deal with increasingly complex international affairs," Zhou told the Global Times.