LOS ANGELES, Dec 3 (AFP) - Chinese dissident and human rights activist Harry Wu urged Americans and Europeans not to buy their children Christmas and Hannukah gifts bearing the label "Made in China."

"Christmas is a season thinking about other people, thinking about love and kindness," said Wu, who spent 17 years in China's forced labor camps and has since tried to expose human rights violations committed there.

"If you find out the toys are made by forced labor and if you care about the human rights abuses... don't buy the toys," said Wu.

The 59-year-old Wu, who has tirelessly campaigned against buying Chinese-made products, said that parents who buy Chinese-made toys "are saying to Chinese authorities, 'We know it. We deny it.'"

Wu, who is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, made his comments during a tour here to promote his new book, "Troublemaker: One Man's Crusade Against China's Cruelty."

Now an American citizen, Wu was arrested in 1995 while reentering China to videotape some of China's 'laogai' system of what he estimates to be more than 1,000 labor camps, factories, wineries, farms and mines.

Toy industry statistics show at least 60 percent of toys bought in the United States come from China.

His comments came just days after Disney Studios resisted pressure from Beijing not to release a movie about the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, who has been a thorn in the side of China for decades.

The Dalai Lama, who now lives in India, won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for drawing attention to China's occupation and brutal treatment of his homeland.

When Disney released the movie domestically in two small markets, China hinted that Disney's plans to build a themepark near Shanghai could be jeopardized.

Despite trying to downplay the confrontation and delaying a decision, Disney won praise from entertainment industry executives for going ahead with the movie.

Newspapers featured a cartoon of Mickey Mouse standing in front of a line of tanks, reminiscent of the photograph of a lone Chinese dissident refusing to give ground to tanks in the 1989 protests.