Published by: World Tibet Network News Saturday, October 25th, 1997

WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (AFP) - US leaders will press Chinese President Jiang Zemin to respect the religious rights of Christians and Tibetan Buddhists during his visit here next week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday.

But Washington believes it would be "foolish" to restrict its dialogue with China to only one issue, she stated.

Albright told law students at a Catholic University here that "it would be foolish for the United States not to engage in a multi-faceted relationship with a country of the size and importance of China."

Jiang arrives in Hawaii Sunday on the first leg of a six-city eight-day tour, the centerpiece of which will be a Washington summit with President Bill Clinton on Wednesday.

Aside from the trade and non-proliferation issues, the US leadership will also discuss the imprisonment of leading dissidents and other human rights concerns.

"We will be stressing to President Jiang Zemin the importance of respecting the religious heritage of the people of Tibet and of ensuring that china's growing Christian community is allowed to worship freely, without harassment or intimidation," she said.

Albright has announced plans to appoint a special coordinator for Tibet but the State Department has said the official will be named after the US-Sino summit.

China has repeatedly been accused of suppressing religious rights in Tibet, which has been under Beijing's rule since troops took control in 1951, and suppressed an uprising eight years later.

In a report this week, Human Rights Watch/Asia also charged that as religion grows more popular in China, state efforts to control it have increased.

The US-based organization noted, however, that long jail terms and physical abuse of religious activists "appear to have declined in recent years."