KATHMANDU, Aug 7 (Reuter) - China has asked Nepal's communist government to clamp down on alleged anti-China activities of Tibetan refugees within the Himalayan kingdom, officials in the Nepali capital said on Monday.

"The Chinese want Nepal to restrict undesirable activities of Tibetans in Nepal," Ganesh Prasad Bhattarai, who headed a Nepali team in border security talks last week with its northern neighbour, told Reuters.

Major-General Zhong Guogang, leader of the Chinese delegation, asked Nepal not to allow "anti-China activities" by Tibetan refugees on Nepali soil, he said.

"Once the asylum seekers fleeing Tibet reported to authorities, they were handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Nepal was under pressure not to return them to China," Bhattarai said.

But Tibetan refugees and UNHCR officials said refugees were reported to have been handed over by Nepali officials to Chinese border guards.

"We have taken up the matter with the government and they say that there is no change in their policy," said Tahir Ali, UNHCR resident representative in Nepal.

There are no designated entry points for Tibetans along the 1,000-km (600-mile) trans-Himalayan border, and refugees travel along traditional mountain trails and passes to reach Nepal on their way to Dharamsala town in northern India.

Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, has been living in Dharamsala with thousands of his followers since 1959 after an abortive uprising against the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1950.

Refugees, who are not allowed to settle in Nepal, usually travel to India, where facilities to study Buddhism are more extensive.

Most of the estimated 20,000 Tibetan refugees staying in Nepal are employed in crafts such as carpet-weaving and Tibetan wall painting, while some run Tibetan restaurants or practice ancient forms of Tibetan medicine.

Nepal's communist rulers, fearing a possible objection from Beijing, earlier this year quashed a plan by Tibetans to stage a peace march from Dharamsala to Lhasa through Nepal. The march was later called off by the Tibetans themselves.