BEIJING (AP) -- In a move likely to deepen divisions in Tibet, China on Sunday announced rejection of a 6-year-old boy recognized by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of an important Tibetan leader.

The government summoned a search committee of Tibetan lamas to Beijing last week to narrow the search for the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama to three boys, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. These three do not include the boy named by the Dalai Lama in May, Xinhua said.

The Panchen Lama is the second highest Tibetan spiritual leader, after the Dalai Lama. With the Dalai Lama in exile, he is the highest ranking leader inside Tibet. Tibetan Buddhists believe the Panchen Lama is Amitabha, the Buddha of tight, and that his spirit passed into the body of an infant when he died in 1939. The search committee has spent the past six years trying to find that boy.

China's ruling Communist Party, whose members must be atheists, claims a precedent set in the 18th century gives the central government the right to approve the choice of Panchen Lama.

The Chinese government says the State Council, or Cabinet, must approve the three boys named by the search committee. Then the reincarnated Panchen Lama will be chosen by drawing lots from a golden urn.

The Dalai Lama recognized the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama in the body of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a six-year-old son of a herder in a Tibetan village who was found by the search committee.

He said the recognition of the reincarnation was a strictly religious matter, and that the search group observed all the traditions.

The government condemns the Dalai Lama for what it claims are his calls for independence for Tibet. The Dalai Lama has said he seeks greater autonomy for Tibet.

The government on Sunday accused him of choosing the child "through fraud" that "violated the cardinal principles of Buddhism," Xinhua reported. For this reason, the boy he named cannot be the reincarnation, it said.

The Tibetan government-in-exile, led by the Dalai Lama, said in a statement that a source in Beijing reported said no dissent was allowed at last week's meeting. The government kept the meeting highly secret, and officials refused to answer reporters' questions about it.

Top government officials, including President Jiang Zemin, met with participants of the meeting, Xinhua said. Jiang urged them to hold the drawing of lots soon Li Ruihuan, a member of the party's Politburo, blamed a delay in the search on 'the Dalai clique's interference and sabotage," Xinhua said.

He called the Dalai Lama a tool of anti-Chinese foreign forces, the main source of instability in Tibet and 'the biggest obstacle for the Tibetan branch of Buddhism in establishing normal order.