By Jane Macartney

BEIJING, Jan 14 (Reuter) - Beijing's religious authorities issued orders on Sunday to all places of worship to register with the government and warned of new problems in the practice of the various faiths permitted in communist China.

The order to register appeared to mark the start of a move to crack down on religion after an upsurge in interest as freedom to worship for Christians, Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhists and Moslems has expanded rapidly in recent years.

Officials at a national conference warned that some people were using the guise of religion to subvert the state.

"Those who make use of religion to interfere with administrative, judicial, martial, educational and other social affairs, especially those who take advantage of religious reasons to split the country, must be severely cracked down upon according to law," Xinhua news agency quoted State Councillor Ismail Amat as saying.

"Rule of law over all social affairs is one of the major characteristics for a modern society, and religious affairs are no exception," Amat said.

The meeting identified three immediate tasks to clean up problems in religion in 1996, Xinhua said.

The tasks are: to order all places of worship to register; to deal with difficult religious problems of public concern; and to cultivate contingents of young patriotic religious preachers, it said.

"We should note that under the reform and opening, there have also appeared some new situations and problems regarding religion," Xinhua said. "We must earnestly study and resolve these."

Amat urged closer cooperation between the Communist Party and religion and warned of the need for the utmost vigilance and determination in religious work, Xinhua said.

His attack on "splittism" was directed against the lead taken by Buddhist monks and nuns in the deeply devout Himalayan region of Tibet, who have been at the forefront of anti-Chinese demonstrations in recent years.

The importance of controlling religion in Tibet was underscored on Friday when Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin met the official reincarnation of the Panchen Lama on Friday and urged the six-year-old boy, Tibetan Buddhism's second-ranking monk, to defend patriotism in the unruly region.

Beijing's enthronement of Gyaincain Norbu as the "soul boy" recipient of the spirit of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, aroused a storm of controversy because it superseded the announcement of a different reincarnation by Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama.

China has also witnessed a revival of Christianity, with many new churches being built, especially in rural areas, despite rules that ban construction of new places of worship except on previous religious sites.

The resurgence in both Protestant and Catholic faiths in China has brought other problems, sparking a warning from officials in central Anhui province last November against illegal and criminal activities under the banner of Christianity.

The province urged reform-through-labour punishment for offenders and a ban on illegitimate missionary activity.

China's Catholic and Protestant churches, both controlled by the state, claim several million believers but many more are believed to worship at underground churches.

Amat also reminded the meeting of a 1994 State Council, or cabinet, provision controlling religious activities - a hint that foreign Christians may be trying to boost their proselytising in China. Beijing generally turns a blind eye to such small-scale activities in return for English teaching.