Published by: World Tibet Network News Issue ID: 98/01/07

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (AFP) - US spiritual leaders seeking to investigate religious persecution in China will be allowed to visit Tibet as part of their mission, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Citing an unnamed member of the delegation, the newspaper said the group had insisted on a visit to the Himalayan territory and told by Chinese officials they would "definitely" go.

Delegation members could not immediately be reached for comment early Wednesday, and officials at the State Department and Chinese embassy here said

they were unable to confirm the report.

But a source familiar with plans for the visit said the religious leaders -- whose China visit was approved by President Jiang Zemin at his October 29 White House summit -- seemed certain they would be going to Tibet in February.

Such a fact-finding mission to Tibet, invaded and annexed by China in the 1950s, would be unprecedented, said Bhuchung Tsering, spokesman for the International Campaign for Tibet.

"In the past the Chinese were satisfied with suppressing Tibetan religion. Now they're trying to control it," he said, citing Beijing's heavy-handed intervention in the choice of a new Panchen Lama.

The delegation is to comprise Reverend Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue in New York City.

Their mission comes amid heightened interest in Congress in pursuing religious freedom as a matter of US foreign policy and sharply increased awareness in the United States of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.

China, which does allow Christian worship but has often jailed church leaders, has also sought in recent months to clean up its image here as a state in which harsh persecution is commonplace.

During the three-week visit, scheduled to begin February 8, the three clerics plan to meet with senior leaders in Beijing and urge them to free jailed clergymen, the Times reported.

US administration officials are largely responsible for arranging the trip, the newspaper said, but groups linked to the religious leaders will finance it.