by Giles Hewitt

BEIJING, Nov 13 (AFP) - China has signalled a major religious crackdown in Tibet, with calls for an all-out offensive on temples, monks and nuns that have fallen under the "splittist" influence of the Dalai Lama.

A full-page article in the official Tibet Daily, seen here Wednesday, called for "large-scale" reforms of existing religious policy in Tibet, saying a lack of administrative control in recent years had led to chaos in some regions.

Observers here said the strongly-worded article could presage a severe crackdown on Tibetan Buddhism, which is already the target of an aggressive "patriotic education" campaign launched earlier this year.

"Buddhism must conform to socialism, not socialism to Buddhism," the signed article said, stressing that all temples, monks and nuns must "conscientiously accept" the leadership of the government and party at all levels.

"This does not mean they should give up their beliefs, but they must support socialism and the party, and reform all practises that do not conform with socialism," it said.

The language employed by the article was eerily reminiscent of the anti-religious diatribes of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when religious persecution in Communist China reached its peak.

While criticising the treatment of religion as a "wild animal" during the Cultural Revolution, the newspaper said religion was currently being given too free a rein in Tibetan society.

"Some people are seeking to expand the role and influence of religion, without recognising its negative influence." it said.

The article also published statistics which it said provided a "clear indication" of religion's negative influence on Tibet's economic development.

At the beginning of 1996, the number of temples in Tibet totalled 1,787, "exceeding the numer of towns and cities," while the 46,000 monks and nuns in the region "outnumbered middle school students."

Building and maintaining temples was using up valuable financial and labour resources to the detriment of other areas, such as primary education, it said, adding that some temples forced even impoverished local residents to support them financially.

"This state of affairs is directly linked to a lack of control in the administration of religious affairs and mistakes made in recent years," the newspaper said.

Reiterating Karl Marx's celebrated maxim that religion was the opium of the masses, the article said Tibetan Buddhism had "completely infiltrated Tibet's economic and social life and interfered with politics ... which is neither in China's interests nor the interests of Tibet's modernisation.

The most pressing task, the newspaper said, was to sort out the "turmoil in people's ideology" created by the clique surrounding the Dalai Lama Tibet's spiritual leader who fled into exile in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

"Some temples are directly or indirectly controlled by the Dalai clique and have become the Tibetan headquarters of hostile foreign forces intent on splitting Tibet from China," it said, adding that monks and nuns formed the "backbone" of the separatist movement in the region.

"We must adopt an offensive strategy to protect the paramount interests of the state, exposing and criticising splittists no matter who or where they are."

The newspaper also criticised "anti-China forces" overseas for distorting the true situation in Tibet and protesting against "even minor measures the government has taken there."

Tibet has long been a focus for human rights lobbies seeking to expose abuses by China's communist authorities.

A major study published by Human Rights Watch/Asia and the Tibet Information Network in March claimed that repression in Tibet had increased dramatically since 1994 and put the number of political prisoners in the region at more than 600.