BEIJING, Aug 25 (AFP) - Senior communist party officials in Tibet and the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang have hit out at some of their cadres for being lukewarm towards the fight against separatism.

"Cadres in certain areas and organizations are not very up on issues concerning separatism," Zi Cheng, a member of the permanent committee of the Tibetan communist party was quoted as saying in local press reports received here Monday.

They "display negligence in their fight (against separatism) factors which could cause instability," the Tibet daily quoted him as saying.

"Our region is characterized by political stability, social progress, ethnic unity and secure borders. But this is exactly what the Dalai Lama and his separatist forces don't want to admit," Zi said.

But he called on cadres not to be fooled by "blind optimism" and to "widen their fight" against the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since fleeing following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Leaders in the Moslem province of Xinjiang also berated cadres for their lack of initiative in dealing with separatist groups active in the region.

Cadres should not "let themselves be taken in by the different ways separatism adorned itself," the deputy secretary of the communist party of Yining told the Xinjiang Daily.

They should all "be aware of the reactionary nature of separatism, as well as its harmful goals and the dangers it embodies," he said.

He called on people to see the true "absurdity" of the call for independence which was based on "religious and linguistic claims."

Xinjiang is China's only Moslem-majority region and has witnessed repeated clashes between the ethnic Han Chinese and the majority Uighur Moslems, some of whom seek an independent state.

Nine people were executed in the autonomous region last month for their roles in February riots against Chinese rule.

Only three weeks after those riots in the border town of Yining three bombs exploded on buses in the regional capital of Urumqi, leaving nine dead and 58 injured.

China has ruled Xinjiang in varying degrees for centuries and it re-established control there in 1949 by crushing the short-lived state of East Turkestan that emerged during the Chinese civil war.

Since then, Beijing has adopted a policy of Han migration to the region to dilute nationalist tendencies.

However, hopes of independence were rekindled with the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the neighbouring Moslem states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.