Chinese communist leaders "have not yet stepped up to the responsibility of a major power" and so far have failed to understand "they actually have some responsibility for the maintenance of the global system," the Washington Times quoted Hayden as saying in an interview.
"When you go and essentially corrupt an island nation in the South Pacific with massive infusions of aid no matter how appropriately or inappropriately it will be used, and you strangle nascent democracies in their crib by doing so just so you can get that island nation's vote in the General Assembly, that's pursuing it for a very narrow base," Hayden said.
"If you want to be a great power, you've got be thinking more broadly, you cannot be acting just on those kind of narrow considerations," he said.
Both China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 after a civil war, have been accused of checkbook diplomacy in the Pacific, using financial support to win official backing from local politicians.
China and Taiwan split in 1949 after a civil war in which the communists took power in Beijing and the defeated Nationalists retreated to the island.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that will eventually be reunited with the mainland.
Among the targets of Chinese influence-buying are the governments of Vanuatu, Samoa, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, the Times said.
On China's support for the Sudan government, which the United States accused of genocide in the Darfur region, Hayden said it is "only the Olympics and the potential embarrassment to come out of the Olympics that convinces them to do more of the right thing there than they've previously done."
Although China has long opposed linking the Olympics to Darfur and other human rights issues, growing international scrutiny of Beijing's ties with Sudan has coincided with greater diplomatic activity by the Asian giant aimed at ending violence in Darfur.
China is the top arms supplier to Sudan and a major investor, particularly in its oil industry.