WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuter) - A U.S.-funded radio station began beaming short-wave broadcasts to Tibet on Monday in a move certain to annoy China.

Radio Free Asia, as the station is known, said it was broadcasting half-hour Tibetan-language news shows, updated three times daily, to the Himalayan land where Chinese troops crushed a popular uprising in 1959.

Tibetan marks the second language service of the station, created by Congress as an Asian counterpart to the anti-communist Radio Free Europe and set up as a private corporation. The station aired its first programmes in Chinese on Sept. 29.

Beijing has blasted Radio Free Asia as a ``Cold War propaganda'' machine and accused it of interference in China's internal affairs.

The station, which does not disclose the location of its transmitters to avoid embarrassment to its hosts, next year plans to phase in local-language broadcasts to Burma, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Its mission, under the 1994 International Broadcasting Act, is to provide accurate and timely information, news and commentary about events in countries where ``people do not fully enjoy freedom of expression.''