BEIJING, Feb 6 (Reuter) - China's propaganda machine had a field day on Thursday, lashing out at U.S. newspapers over accusations of torture and rape of Tibetan nuns and suggestions that the United States should get tough with China.

The overseas edition of the People's Daily, mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, scoffed at accusations that Chinese authorities tortured, raped and murdered Tibetan nuns, monks and civilians in the restive Himalayan region.

"This series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer is weak to the extent that it is laughable," the newspaper said.

The Inquirer published last December a series of articles documenting what it said were stories of rape, torture and murder of Tibetan monks, nuns and ordinary people at the hands of Chinese authorities.

In the articles nearly two dozen cases were documented, including names and dates, from the Himalayan region that has been rocked in recent years by periodic anti-Chinese unrest led by monks and nuns seeking independence and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama.

"This is a critical story that lays bare the efforts by the (Chinese) government to wipe out the culture and religion of the Tibetan people through torture and worse," PRNewswire last December quoted Inquirer Editor Mawell E.P. King as saying.

International human rights groups have made similar accusations, quoting Tibetans who fled China.

China denied the accusations.

"One of the main reasons for the Philadelphia Inquirer and some U.S. media to repeatedly fabricate lies about Tibet is their strong bias, arrogance and conceitedness," the People's Daily said.

"Using the so-called Tibet problem to incite anti-Chinese sentiment is fashionable among the U.S. media," it said.

China's propaganda machine also took on the New York Times, despite a recent rapid warming in ties between Beijing and Washington that had deteriorated in 1995 and up to mid-1996.

"The venom of the New York Times editorial lies in the fact that it...seditiously creates an atmosphere that will poison the relationship between China and the United States at a time when there is a tendency toward improving the bilateral relations," the Xinhua news agency said.

"The Times' editorial writer has one special skill: the ability to confuse black and white and to call a deer a house," Xinhua said.

The New York Times suggested in a January 30 editorial that U.S. President Bill Clinton should get tough with China.

"The demise of Communism may come someday in China, but it would be a mistake to adopt a passive American policy based on that optimistic prospect, as Mr. Clinton seems to be doing," the Times said.

"There is already abundant evidence suggesting that Communism in China is not dying but is instead mutating into a new form that tolerates economic liberties while still suffocating political freedom," the Times said.

Xinhua said comparing in the same breath the collapse of the Berlin Wall with socialist China, which is prospering, was an "incongruous comparison" just as "donkeys' lips don't match horses' jaws."