Published by: World Tibet Network News, 96/03/09 23:00 GMT

By Paul Eckert

BEIJING, March 8 (Reuter) - The six-year-old boy named by China as the reincarnation of Tibet's second-holiest monk has won the approval of Tibetan clergy and contributes to stability in his homeland, government officials said on Friday.

"Both clergy and laypersons in Tibet are satisfied with the reincarnation," said Raidi, chairman of the standing committee of parliament in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

"Tibet enjoys social stability and economic development and Tibetan people are content with their work and life" -- thanks in part to the smooth reincarnation arranged by China, he told a news conference in Beijing.

The boy, Gyaincain Norbu, was identified as the recipient of the spirit of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, in a ceremony presided over by a Communist Party official in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in December.

The enthronement provoked controversy because it superseded the announcement of a different reincarnation by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled god-king, whose calls for greater Tibetan autonomy are condemned by Beijing as attempts to split China.

The row between atheist China and the exiled spiritual leader also raised fears about the fate of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the six-year-old named last May by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International says the boy named by the Dalai Lama is missing, along with his family and other monks.

Reports of the boy's imprisonment were "sheer groundless fabrication," Raidi insisted.

"On the young boy's well-being, I can assure you that he is living happily with his family," he said.

"How can a little boy as young as Choekyi Nyima commit any crime and be imprisoned?"

The 11th Panchen Lama had taken up studies of the Tibetan language and basic scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism, he said.

The studies would make the boy "a patriotic great Buddhist master who is devoted to the motherland and well-versed in Buddhism," a Tibetan member of China's parliament said on Thursday.

State media heaped abuse this week on the Dalai Lama, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, calling him "a political exile who works to split the motherland under the cloak of religion."

The Dalai Lama and thousands of followers fled to India in 1959 after an abortive anti-Chinese uprising, but he continues to command the loyalty of many Tibetans.

The region has been rocked by often violent pro-independence protests since 1987, and China has jailed many monks and nuns who have spearheaded the independence movement.

China asserted sovereignty over Tibet, sending troops to purge Tibetan "feudalism" and install socialism, after communists took control of China in 1949.

ibet's economy grew 10.6 percent in 1995, the first time in history the region had achieved double-digit growth, said Raidi.