A Chinese newspaper has hit out at Guns N' Roses over the title of their 13 million-dollar latest album, Chinese Democracy.

The Global Times, which is published by the country's ruling Communist party, ran an article under the headline "American band releases album venomously attacking China".

In a weird echo of Luke Turner's own track-by-track assessment of the album, the piece added that the record was part of a Western plot to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn".

Chinese Democracy is not thought to be legally on sale in China but is available for streaming on the band's MySpace site and can be bought online. The country's internet censors were said to be trying to block access to the G N' R website earlier today.

The album takes its title from the Falun Gong meditation movement, which was banned in 1999, with allegations about the torture and persecution of members surfacing over subsequent years.

Rose said in 2001 that the title was "not necessarily pro or con about China". He told an audience in Las Vegas: "It's just that right now China symbolises one of the strongest, yet most oppressive countries and governments in the world. And we [Americans] are fortunate to live in a free country."