China blasts European Parliament over Tibet resoution (AFP)

BEIJING, July 14 (AFP) - China has denounced a European Parliament (EP)

resolution on a cancelled World Bank project for Tibet as "wantonly

distorting" its internal situation, state media reported Friday.

In an eight-part statement, China's National People's Congress blasted the

EP for "deliberately calling the Chinese territory (of Tibet) a country" and

"slandering that China 'occupied' Tibet," Xinhua news agency reported.

"It is an act of hegemonic politics to rashly pass some resolutions in

unjustifiable accusation against others without learning the true fact of the

issues concerned, this represents deliberate confrontation," it said.

The World Bank's 40-million-dollar Western China Poverty Reduction Project

in northwest Qinghai province had been expected to force the resettlement of

some 57,000 mostly ethnic Chinese into areas traditionally inhabited by

Tibetans.

But the bank last week decided not to go ahead funding for the project

without a further vote -- a condition that was unacceptable to China.

The people's congress statement called "utterly unjustifiable" an EP

accusation the project was engineered to increase ethnic Chinese settlements

in Tibet.

China has announced it will now fund the project itself, a move that some

fear will bring about an even more negative impact on Tibetan culture as the

World Bank would no longer have a say.