BEIJING, April 29 (Reuter) - Recent changes to China's criminal code make it easier for Beijing to stifle dissent and have ominous implications for Hong Kong after the British colony reverts to Chinese rule on July 1, a human rights group said.

The striking of the term "counterrevolution," communist code for subversion, from the law books in March did not signify a loosening of political controls by Beijing, said a report by New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch/Asia on Tuesday.

"China has merely replaced the term 'counterrevolution' with the equally elastic notion of 'endangering state security' and has, in the process, actually broadened the capacity of the state to suppress dissent," the report said.

China had long used the crime of counterrevolution to jail dissidents and the change in the name had been expected to have little impact on the power of the law to punish those with opinions deemed hostile to the state.

The human rights report said the new statutes went far beyond what was deemed necessary to guard state security under internationally accepted norms.

While some changes such as the delinking of murder, prison riots and armed rebellion from the realm of political crimes were positive, the new provisions gave authorities more scope for persecuting political critics, it said.

"There is no effort in any of these laws to establish standards to determine that any act has actually harmed state security or even could have done so," it said.

Chinese legal officials had no immediate comment.

Hong Kong residents, whom Beijing has pledged may keep their legal system and way of life for 50 years after the British colony reverts to Chinese rule on July 1, could suffer under the new laws, it said.

The revisions would make it easier for authorities to crack down on dissidents who had foreign contacts or received overseas funding, it said.

"The new security provisions will facilitate the labeling of all domestic critics as tools of 'hostile foreign forces'," it said. Also at risk would be those who sought to aid such dissidents.

Groups that provided money for former political prisoners or their families or that had programmes to support activism in China many of which had members in Hong Kong were obvious targets for the new laws, it said.

"Despite Hong Kong's separate legal system, Beijing may have the power to bring Hong Kong people to face trial in mainland courts," it said.

"The Chinese authorities are clearly sending a chilling message to those who seek to 'subsidise' their domestic critics," it said.

The report urged Beijing to release all prisoners convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes and to draft further amendments to the criminal code to bring it in line with international standards.

China said it had 2,026 counterrevolutionary prisoners, but that figure probably excluded inmates in the remote regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, the report said.

"Since the Chinese government does not permit any independent monitoring of conditions within the country's prison system, there is no way of checking the figures," it said.

China routinely dismisses foreign criticism of its human rights record as interference in its internal affairs and points to rapidly rising living standards as evidence it is protecting its citizen's basic freedoms.