NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Jiang Zemin rejected U.S. criticism of China's human rights record Thursday, saying jailed religious figures were lawbreakers and the people of Tibet lived in "happiness and contentment."

In a spirited debate with members of Congress and a speech to Asian experts in Washington, Jiang, who is on a nine-day U.S. tour that included a summit with President Clinton, said China would expand economic and political openness within its communist system.

Jiang arrived in New York Thursday evening, flying into John F. Kennedy International Airport from Philadelphia.

He was not officially received by either Mayor Rudolph Giuliani or New York Gov. George Pataki but was met by about 200 supporters, mostly university students.

There were no demonstrators.

While human rights charges and denials dominated the day's events in the U.S. capital, there were signs that economic and political relations were being fostered on the first state visit since relations were chilled by the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said: "We have widespread interests in common with China, whether that's preventing war in Korea, trying to deal with the environment, trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons."

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who castigated Jiang on the rights issue at a breakfast for him in Congress, later said, "The framework of a peaceful evolution of this relationship is there."

In a deal timed to coincide with the summit, Chinese officials signed a $3 billion order for 50 jets made by Boeing Co., the biggest Chinese aircraft order ever.

And the U.S. nuclear industry was highly optimistic after an agreement under which Clinton will allow exports of U.S. nuclear energy equipment to China in return for assurances that Beijing will end nuclear cooperation with Iran.

Reflecting suspicion of Chinese promises, however, State Department spokesman James Rubin said, "We're in trust-but-verify mode." He said the agreement would be put at risk if Beijing failed to meet its pledge.

At the breakfast meeting, Jiang heard a catalog of complaints about abuse of jailed dissidents, religious persecution, forced abortion and nuclear proliferation.

In a closed meeting marked by courtesy but profound skepticism from the lawmakers, the president rejected their criticism, saying that "never before has Chinese society been so prosperous and open as today."

Jiang, who heard similar criticism from Clinton Wednesday, said, "In terms of structural reform, we will expand democracy, improve the legal system, run the country according to law and build a socialist country under the law."

In a lunch speech to the Asia Society, a private group that promotes the improvement of U.S. relations with Pacific nations, Jiang pursued his theme that rights were a national affair and accusations of abuse were unacceptable interference.

Responding to attacks on his Tibet policy from, among others, the protestors who have rallied at each of his stops Jiang dismissed reports that China was repressing the people of the Himalayan enclave, where a popular uprising was crushed in 1959.

"Today's Tibet is developing prosperously, and people there are living in happiness and contentment," Jiang said.

He compared Chinese actions in Tibet to Abraham Lincoln's emancipation of blacks from slavery in the U.S. Civil War. "It was our democratic reform that emancipated some 1 million serfs and slaves," he said.

Gingrich said Jiang had invited him to visit Tibet and he had replied that when he went in August 1998, he hoped Jiang and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, would be there to greet him.

House Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas gave Jiang a list of 30 Chinese citizens he said were being persecuted for their religious beliefs and asked Jiang to have them released.

But Jiang, who also heads the Chinese Communist Party, said those under arrest had broken the law. At the lunch he said that in China people had "the freedom of religious belief."

Jiang said China had signed 17 international human rights agreements and had recently joined in a covenant to protect "economic, social and cultural rights."

Jiang stopped in Philadelphia on Thursday to see more sights, including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, powerful symbols of American freedom and democracy.

National Park Service rangers gave Jiang a brief presentation on the history of Independence Hall and a key to the historic building. Jiang reciprocated with a decorative Chinese plate for the rangers.

He also had a 45-minute reunion with 94-year-old Ku Yuhsiu, a retired University of Pennsylvania professor and Sino-Japanese War hero. Ku taught engineering to Jiang in Shanghai in the late 1940s.