by Karen Lowe

LOS ANGELES, Oct 31 (AFP) - Americans are hearing a lot about Tibet as Chinese President Jiang Zemin makes a high-profile visit to the United States just as Hollywood gets a virulent case of China fever.

Television has been airing the chants of human rights protestors who have been dogging Jiang at every stop, heightening awareness of Beijing's tight grip on its citizens, especially Tibetans.

Between news spots are promotional clips from the movies "Red Corner," featuring Richard Gere and Bai Ling, and "Seven Years in Tibet" starring Brad Pitt. Coming up is acclaimed director Martin Scorcese's "Kundun."

"Seven Years in Tibet" and "Kundun" deal with the communist Chinese 1959 invasion and occupation of Tibet and the life of the country's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled.

"Red Corner" premiered as Jiang was having a White House state dinner while Gere hosted a "stateless" dinner across the street with hundreds of protestors and used the opportunity to champion the cause of Tibet.

For all this attention, the Dalai Lama says he is grateful.

"Now in order to (create) more public awareness in the outside world, the media is very, very supportive," he told AFP in June during an interview here about the upcoming movies.

The Dalai Lama said these films "are one way to reach millions of people ... I am happy that, through this, there will be wider awareness of the Tibetan cause."

After a lukewarm response from movie reviewers, Jiang's visit may have saved "Red Corner" and "Seven Years in Tibet" from box-office oblivion while providing activists with a prime target audience.

The International Campaign for Tibet has hired a public relations firm to target audiences exiting in the past weeks from "Seven Years in Tibet" and Disney's "Kundun" when it is released in December.

The pro-Tibet group that has operated for years on the diplomatic and public margins now has the limelight.

Campaign director John Ackerly told Variety the group's website hits jumped from the usual 500 a week to 32,000 over the past month. Membership has tripled to 10,000. Donations have also climbed.

In case anyone may have missed the point this week, Gere and Bai Ling have appeared on television and radio talk shows and in newspaper interviews to talk about human rights abuses by China in Tibet.

Gere, who has been banned from the Academy Award after in 1993 he asked the world to "send this thought out" for the Chinese army to vacate Tibet, has been pressing the case in any forum he can get.

"We made as tough a movie as we could possibly make," Gere said on CNN's 'Larry King Live' when a caller asked about MGM-United Artists' contention that it was releasing "Red Corner" for its "entertainment value."

Co-star Bai Ling, 24, also used the opportunity to speak out, saying that like her character in the movie who defends an American businessman (Gere) framed for murder, she too no longer wants to remain silent.

She said she once joined the Chinese army, lured by the uniforms. At the age of 14, she said she served for three years, part of that time in the rugged mountain region of Tibet.

"I am grateful to Hollywood that it made the first political movie about China," she said. But she feels "torn" and "twisted" about putting the heat on her homeland while her father, sister and grandmother still live there.

Asked if she fears her remaining family members will be persecuted by authorities, she responded apprehensively: "When I talk about it I get very emotional and I don't know how to deal with it."

"That's something I am afraid. I am afraid," she said, adding that she hopes to return to China to visit her family at the end of the year but does not know if she will be allowed in the country.

On the CNN program, she also made an open appeal to Jiang to let Gere into the country, adding, "Accept him as your friend, your brother. Welcome him home."

While Americans will undoubtedly get the message about China, Jiang has concertedly avoided demonstrators. Beijing has barred the films from China.

No matter, said Stanford University China specialist Michel Oksenberg, the Chinese people will circumvent their officials by picking up the movies on bootlegged copies of the movies and through compact discs.

"China is porous and messages do get through," he said.