Thursday August 21 7:03 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The State Department said Thursday it shared many of the concerns about Tibet voiced by a U.S. congressman who recently paid a clandestine visit there and had already spoken out on some of them.

Virginia Republican Frank Wolf said Wednesday that China was maintaining a "death grip" on the region and called for urgent action to save its unique Himalayan Buddhist culture.

"We share many of the concerns expressed by Congressman Wolf," State Department spokesman James Rubin said. He said the department looked forward to talking to Wolf, who has requested a meeting to discuss his trip.

Rubin noted the United States regarded Tibet as a part of China, whose government crushed an uprising there in 1959.

But he said the post of special coordinator for Tibet recently created by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright under pressure from Congress would be filled "very soon."

He said the administration had publicly supported two things Wolf called for: the presence of outside observers at trials in Tibet and a dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Rubin stopped short of endorsing Wolf's tactics in traveling to Tibet on a tourist visa without declaring that he was a member of Congress.

But he said, "It is our view ... that it would be helpful and better if the Chinese government would allow more official travel to Tibet, and then these types of steps would not be necessary."

Rubin said he was not aware of any protest from the Chinese government over the visit.