BEIJING (AP) Nov 24, 1996 -- The 7-year-old boy China has picked to lead Buddhists in Tibet has promised to be a patriotic religious figure, the state news agency said Sunday.

Dressed in traditional burgundy robes and a yellow peaked hat, the Panchen Lama said he wanted to follow in the tradition of his predecessors and ``be a living Buddha who loves the country and religion,'' the Xinhua News Agency said.

China's ruling Communists orchestrated the boy's selection last November, six months after Tibetan Buddhism's highest figure, the exiled Dalai Lama, recognized another boy as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

China hopes its choice will lend legitimacy to its often harsh 46-year rule of Tibet. The Dalai Lama's choice has not been seen in public for at least 17 months and Chinese officials have admitted to sequestering him.

China's Panchen Lama made the promise in a meeting Friday with Zhao Puchu, head of China's Buddhist Association and vice chairman of a top government advisory body.

Zhao said he knew the boy's predecessor, the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, as someone ``who wished to protect the unity of the motherland and vigorously develop China,'' Xinhua said.

With a grin, the boy placed a white ceremonial scarf around Zhao's neck, a traditional form of greeting for Tibetans, and said ``Ni hao,'' hello in Chinese, according to footage of the meeting aired on state-run television.

The Panchen Lama became the most senior Buddhist cleric in Tibet when the Dalai Lama fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, despite an intensifying campaign by Beijing to discredit him and assert more control over Tibetan Buddhism.

While officially atheist, Chinese leaders claimed they have the right to approve religious titles, just as some Chinese emperors did.