By SID BALMAN Jr. - UPI Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Only days before Secretary of State Warren Christopher journeys to China, the Clinton administration announced the formation of a panel to monitor Beijing's abuse of Tibetans and similar forms of religious repression around the world.

Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck, Washington's top human rights official who will chair the 20-person "advisory committee on religious freedoms abroad," said the group would collect information on repression and pass it on to officials formulating policies.

"Its primary goals include fostering greater dialogue between religious communities and the U.S. government, increasing the flow of information to the U.S. government concerning the conditions of religious minorities facing persecution around the world, and informing interested groups and individuals about the U.S. government's efforts to address issues of religious persecution and religious freedom," Shattuck said.

"Religious freedom is a right we hold sacred in America. It is a right which we would look to see exercised in every corner of the globe. "

Shattuck, who is expected to accompany Christopher on a four-day visit to China this weekend, said Beijing's repression of Tibetan culture and religion is a "good example" of an abusive international situation the advisory panel plans to investigate.

China's iron-fisted rule of Tibet and repression of religious freedoms there has been condemned by human rights groups and the United States. Beijing considers Tibet, which it invaded in 1950, to have been part of China's territory since the 13th century and has systematically attempted to stamp out any vestige of its culture.

"One of the great focus points of our human rights concerns in China and Tibet has been problems of religious freedom and discrimination against those who are engaged in trying to exercise religious freedom," Shattuck said.

Recognition of the Tibetan culture and opening a dialogue with its main spiritual leader, the dalai lama who lives in exile in India, was one of Washington's conditions for renewing China's low-tariff trading privileges in American markets. President Clinton severed the link between most-favored-nation trade status and improvement in China's human rights record, but pledged to continue pressing the issue.

Christopher plans to raise human rights concerns with Chinese leaders during his trip to Beijing and Shanghai, U.S. officials say, but not so vociferously as to upset fragile relations.