By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING, Oct 2 (Reuter) - The Communist Party boss in China's Inner Mongolia region has issued a warning to regions plagued by ethnic strife to be alert against attempts by what he said were hostile Western forces aimed at splitting China.

Some hostile Western forces have been engaged in splitting China under the pretext of human rights and ethnic and religious issues, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday, quoting Liu Mingzu, the party chief of Inner Mongolia. He did not identify the hostile forces.

"We must have high political awareness of this," Liu said in an article published in the hardline magazine "Seeking Truth."

Officials "must pay attention to politics, which means they must safeguard the unity of all peoples and safeguard the unification of the motherland," he said.

Inner Mongolia is populated mainly by ethnic Mongolians and has shown little sign of anti-Chinese unrest since the early years after the 1949 communist takeover and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when dissent was crushed.

However, late last year, authorities in Inner Mongolia arrested a group of about 12 people who had demanded more democracy as well as a separate autonomous region.

Police accused the group of taking part in a counter-revolutionary, or subversive, organisation that aimed to engage in ethnically divisive activities, international human rights groups said.

Liu said officials in restive regions should follow the example of heroes and paragons publicised by the state media and "share weal and woe" with the people.

Local officials must develop their economies but still submit to the control of the central government, he said.

They must spare no effort to boost their local economies, the basis for consolidating national defence, stabilising China's borders and safeguarding the unification of the motherland, Liu said.

"Ethnic unity is an important condition for political stability, and political stability in turn is a reliable guarantee for economic development," Liu said.

"Under any circumstances, the officials must safeguard the absolute authority of the Communist Party Central Committee and support the overall control of the central government over economic development," he said.

Liu said officials in regions plagued by ethnic strife must endeavour to narrow the widening gap between booming coastal provinces in the east and impoverished regions in the western interior, but should not abandon socialist ideology and culture.

Inner Mongolia has traditionally been less restive than the Himalayan region of Tibet and the northwestern Xinjiang region.

China has been accused of widespread human rights abuses since its troops entered Tibet in 1950. Beijing denies the charges and says Tibet has been a part of China for centuries, a claim disputed by many Tibetans.

Xinjiang, a largely Moslem region bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and three mainly Moslem Central Asian states, has a long history of ethnic unrest and has been hit by sporadic pro-independence bombings and assassination attempts in recent months.

China ordered tighter border controls in May to prevent the smuggling of weapons and subversive materials from neighbouring Moslem states, and cracked down on campuses in the region.