BEIJING, Oct 2 (AFP) - Separatist movements gnawing away at Chinese control in ethnic border regions will only be silenced by an increase in material wealth among local populations, a top Chinese official said Wednesday.

"At present, some hostile western forces have been engaged in splitting China under the pretext of human rights and ethnic and religious problems," said Liu Mingzu, party secretary of Inner Mongolia.

"Only a strong economy and improved material and cultural living standards can show the advantages of socialism ... and promote the unification of all peoples towards the Communist Party," he said in an article published in the influential Seeking Truth magazine.

Beijing appears to be having increasing difficulties suppressing independence sentiments in Tibet and neighbouring Xinjiang, which has a Uighur Moslem majority and strong links with the Islamic states of the former Soviet Union.

Even in Inner Mongolia, where massive Han Chinese migration has turned ethnic Mongolians into a minority in their homeland, rumblings of dissent have been growing louder.

"Officials must spare no efforts to boost the local economy, which is the basis for promoting economic and social development, consolidationg national defense, stabilising the borders and safeguarding the unity of the motherland," Liu warned.

Tibet and Xinjiang, and to some extent Inner Mongolia, suffer from endemic poverty, a lack of infrastructure and weak economies.

According to pro-independence Uighurs exiled in Kazakhstan, some 4,800 ethnic Uigur officials and party members have been dismissed in Xinjiang province in the last week for "separatist sentiments."

In addition, 18,000 people have been arrested for pro-independence activities in the province since April, they claim.

Meanwhile, the situation in Tibet also appears to have worsened, with Raidi, deputy party secretary of Tibet, warning in a speech received in Beijing on Wednesday of a series of bomb attacks and assasination attempts.

"In the name of religion and ethnicity, the Dalai Lama clique has incited illegal religious activities and splittism among ethnic groups and plotted assassinations, explosions and created unstable factors," he told a meeting of the Tibet Military Region.

"The task for us to defend social stability is more arduous, heavy and complicated," he added, according to the Tibet Daily.