"Daily Telegraph" (Sydney), August 9 - by Bruce McDougall

A Sydney company which supplies Western radio music to China will investigate cliams that the show is beeing used to jam dissident broadcasts into Tibet.

The programs heard daily by millions of Chinese consumers are produced by a company partly owned by advertising whizz John Singleton and entrepeneur Sir Peter Abeles.

Material for the Easy FM joint venture, also involving United Airlines general manager Anne Keating, is recorded in a tiny studio in North Sydney before being sent to 16 Chinese radio stations.

The BBC's monitoring service says China has been using Easy FM since July to block broadcasts by the Voice of Tibet, a dissident program produced out of Norway.

Previously, China used electronically produced "white noise" to block Voice of Tibet.

The Australia Tibet Council said yesterday the Australian business identities involved in Easy FM had been "duped" by the Chinese.

"It's a classic example of the dangers Australian companies face when they try to do business with China and end up becoming implicated in human rights abuses", spokeswoman Alex Butler said.

Easy FM director of programming and operations Phil Sutton said the allegations would be investigated with joint venture partners China Radio International.

Mr Singleton and Ms Keating negotiated the 10-year multi-million dollar radio deal with the Chinese in 1994.