23 August 1997

BEIJING (Reuter) - China, under fire from a U.S. congressman who claims it maintains a "death grip" on Tibet, defended its rule over the restive region Friday, saying Tibetan culture was thriving and its monasteries flourishing.

Scholars attending a seminar on Tibet invoked Chinese history and the writings of 14th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo to back Chinese sovereignty over the Himalayan region.

Xinhua news agency issued a flurry of stories defending China's 46-year rule over Tibet after Virginia Republican Congressman Frank Wolf called in Washington Wednesday for urgent action to save the region's unique Buddhist culture.

"The fact that the Dalai Lama's political status was granted by the central government is proof that Tibet is an inseparable part of China," Xinhua quoted Chang Fengxun, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.

Wang Gui, a research fellow at the Military Academy of Sciences, told the seminar Marco Polo described Tibet as a "province" of China in his writings more than 700 years ago.

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against communist rule. The god-king won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent campaign to win autonomy for his homeland.

Beijing says the fact that China's emperors since 1653 had verified the identification of his reincarnation as Dalai Lama underlined Chinese sovereignty.

Wolf, a religious freedom champion who traveled to Tibet Aug. 9-13 unannounced, described its capital Lhasa as being swamped by government-sent ethnic Han Chinese settlers who outnumbered ethnic Tibetans by 160,000 to 100,000.

He said the inescapable conclusion was that China was "swallowing Tibet" and that "Tibet is disappearing" a claim Xinhua denied.

Changngupa Dorje Ngodrub, deputy director of Tibet's Education Commission, said the Tibetan language was still the common language in regions inhabited by Tibetans and continued to thrive, Xinhua reported.

Buddhism was flourishing in Tibet, home to 1,700 of China's 3,000 Tibetan Buddhist temples and more than 130,000 monks and nuns, it said.

Wolf had urged the Clinton administration to press China for the release of what he called 700 prisoners of conscience in Tibet when China's Communist Party chief and President Jiang Zemin meets President Clinton in the United States in October.

China views accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet as interference in its internal affairs.

The U.S. State Department said Thursday it shared many of Wolf's concerns about Tibet but stopped short of endorsing his tactics in traveling to Tibet on a tourist visa without declaring he was a member of Congress.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has yet to comment on Wolf's unannounced visit.

Under pressure from the Republican-led Congress, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently agreed to name a special coordinator within the State Department by Nov. 1 to nudge China toward negotiations with the Dalai Lama.