By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING. Dec. 14 (Reuter) - Beijing hit back at Washington Thursday for criticizing its jailing of dissident Wei Jingsheng, demanding an immediate end to "vicious actions" in a new round of Sino-U.S. acrimony over human rights.

"We strongly condemn these malicious moves by the U.S. side, which constitute a serious infringement upon China's sovereignty and interference in China's internal affairs," Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian told a news briefing.

"We demand that the U.S. side ... immediately stop ... vicious actions that have seriously encroached upon China's sovereignty and interfered in its internal affairs," he said.

The broadside was directed at White House and congressional criticism of Wei's prosecution as well as its policy on Tibet.

Wei, a 1995 Nobel Peace Prize nominee widely regarded as the father of China's modern democracy movement, was found guilty Wednesday of conspiring to subvert the government and jailed for 14 years.

A White House spokesman swiftly condemned China and urged it to show clemency, saying Wei's trial aimed to "silence the voice of democracy."

Chen said Washington's words had "aroused utmost indignation of the Chinese people.

"Unwarranted remarks on and wilful interference in China's internal affairs by any foreign country or individual are totally unacceptable to us," he said.

The angry exchange was the latest in a long series of disputes dating back to before Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations were established in 1979.

China's efforts to silence Wei and other government critics over the years go to the heart of the frictions, although Washington and Beijing have locked horns over China's policies on Taiwan and Tibet, arms exports and trade barriers.

Relations had seemed on the mend in recent weeks after falling at mid-year to what China called their lowest ebb since 1979, in a feud over a U.S. visit by Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui.

Chen Thursday also denounced the House of Representatives for throwing its weight behind Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, in a bitter dispute over the naming of a senior Tibetan Buddhist cleric, the Panchen Lama.

China last week enthroned a six-year-old boy as the 11th Panchen Lama after rejecting the Dalai Lama's choice for the second-holiest lama.

Britain, France and Germany have also condemned China but Chen declined to answer a question on whether the condemnation also applied to Germany.

Analysts said China's open-door policy could be shaken by the closed-door conviction of Wei, which they said revealed a leadership obsessed by dissent and tempted to wield Wei as a diplomatic pawn.

The trial was Wei's first public appearance since April 1994, when he vanished into legal limbo after meeting with a senior U.S. human rights official. The sedition charge, which can carry a death penalty, was not disclosed until last month.

Wei was first jailed in 1979 for "counter-revolutionary incitement," convicted of advocating democratic change and passing military secrets to a foreign reporter.

China paroled him in September 1993, six months before the end of his 15-year sentence, in what was seen widely as a bid to improve its image in its drive to bring the 2000 Summer Olympics to Beijing. The Olympic bid failed.

In Hong Kong, which reverts to China in mid-1997, protesters demanding that Beijing free Wei scuffled with police outside China's representative office Thursday.

Shouting "Free Wei Jingsheng now," and "Wei is innocent," nearly 200 demonstrators attempted to push past police lines outside the office of Xinhua news agency, China's de facto embassy, and mass on the narrow sidewalk.

A police spokesman said no arrests were made and there were no reports of injuries.

Taiwan Thursday made a restrained criticism of Wei's jailing, signaling its unwillingness to further strain ties with its giant neighbor.

The only government official to comment was the acting chairman of Taiwan's top policymaking body toward China, the Mainland Affairs Council.

"It seems it was because of his speeches that he was sentenced. This does not conform to the freedom of speech and respect for human rights which should exist in democratic and free societies," Kao Koong-lian said on state television.