LONDON, April 4 (AFP) Britain on Friday moved to increase international pressure on China to improve its human rights record when it said it would back a UN resolution condemning the country.

Acting in support of a Danish move to raise the profile of the motion at the ongoing session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind called on other nations to follow suit.

"It is important that international attention is focused on the need for improvement in China's human rights situation," he said in a statement.

The move comes after a human rights group criticised the United States, France and other Western countries for failing to condemn rights abuses in China.

Human Rights WatchAsia said on Thursday that the prospect of major sales of commercial airliners to China had changed the thinking of perennial supporters of such motions.

The USbased organization said it was concerned the resolution condemning China was probably dead in the water.

Beijing has not ratified two international covenants it promised to consider, one on civil and political rights, and the other on economic, social and cultural rights, the group noted.

It added that international monitors have not been given access to Chinese prisons; rights observers have not been allowed to go to Tibet or Xinjiang; and Beijing has not released a significant number of political, religious and labour activists from prison.

The UN commission is meeting in Geneva through April 18, but France has declared it would not support a motion critical of China, saying confrontation was not the best way to deal with Beijing.

Germany, Italy and Spain have supported the French position.

A motion has been put before the commission every year by the European Union-with US support-since the June 1989 military suppression of democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.