BEIJING (AP) Nov 12 -- Accusing the Dalai Lama of fraud, China on Sunday rejected the Tibetan leader's choice of a 6-year-old boy as the reincarnation of a top-ranking Buddhist official.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported the Chinese 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, not including the boy named by the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama, in exile since 1959, is still widely revered in Tibet as a god-king. The Panchen Lama is the second-highest Tibetan spiritual leader, after the Dalai Lama, and the highest-ranking leader inside Tibet. Tibetan Buddhists believe the Panchen Lama is Amitabha, the Buddha of Light, and that his spirit passed into the body of an infant when he died in 1989. The search committee has been looking for that boy for six years.

The Chinese government says the Cabinet must approve the three boys named by the committee, and 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 as Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a herder's son found in a Tibetan village by the search committee.

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

The Dalai Lama adamantly denies the allegations.

"To all Tibetans, the boy recognized by the Dalai Lama is the sole legitimate reincarnation, no matter what methods the Chinese authorities may use to put a stamp of legitimacy on their present move," said Lodi G. Gyari, a representative of the Dalai Lama in Washington.

The date of the drawing was not immediately known.

China invaded Tibet in 1950 and claims it has had sovereignty over the region since the 13th century. Many Tibetans say they had de facto independence for much of that time.