Australia pressures China on Tibet

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said China's crackdown in Tibet was disturbing while scuffles broke out at protests in Paris and New York as international pressure mounted on China to show restraint.

Western governments have expressed concern about the unrest in Lhasa which on Sunday spread to neighboring Tibetan enclaves in China.

Beijing has given "troublemakers" from Friday's deadly riots in Lhasa until midnight on Monday to turn themselves in.

"These most recent developments in Tibet are disturbing. I would call on the Chinese authorities to exercise restraint," Rudd told reporters on Monday.

China is Australia's top trading partner.

Rudd, a former diplomat who speaks fluent Mandarin, said Australia had long recognized China's sovereignty over Tibet. He said human rights issues were regularly raised in top level discussions with Chinese leaders.

The Australian Greens criticized Rudd's comments, comparing his call for restraint with calls for targeted sanctions against Myanmar when its soldiers shot and jailed Buddhist democracy demonstrators last year.

"Our prime minister and this government has got to get some backbone over Tibet and speak up and look the Chinese communist dictatorship in the eye when Kevin Rudd gets to China," Australia Greens Senator Bob Brown told reporters.

Australia's plea for restraint echoed similar calls from the United States, Europe and Japan.

France said it was monitoring the situation in Tibet "with close attention with our European partners".

"With the approach of the Olympic Games, which ought to be a great show of fraternity, France would like to draw the attention of the Chinese authorities to the importance of respecting human rights," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier phoned his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, his office said in a statement on Sunday, and expressed the German government's very serious worries.

"Everything must be done to prevent a further escalation of the situation and to enable a peaceful end to the conflict," the statement said.

"Minister Steinmeier calls on his Chinese counterparts to offer as much transparency as possible over the events in Tibet and asks them to do everything possible to ensure the safety of German citizens and tourists."

In Asia, where many countries have important trade or strategic relationships with China, official comments, if any have tended to be circumspect.

A South Korea Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a news briefing on Monday:

"We are closely watching the situation in Tibet. We hope the issue is resolved peacefully without any casualties. I do not think it is appropriate to speak on the impact this matter will have at this current stage."

Over the weekend Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura called for calm, adding: "I ask that the Chinese government give thorough consideration (to this) so that the Olympics will not be affected."

PROTESTS

There have been daily pro-Tibet protests around the world since last Monday, the 49th anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule.

On Sunday, French riot police used tear gas to disperse around 500 pro-Tibetan supporters from around the Chinese embassy on Paris's chic avenue George V.

Protesters held up banners with slogans such as "I Am With The Dalai Lama" and "China's Lying, Tibetans Are Dying".

At one point, a demonstrator climbed onto the first floor balcony of the embassy to take down the Chinese flag and replace it with the Tibetan one.

In New York, police said protesters threw rocks at officers gathered outside the Chinese consulate in Manhattan.

There were also ugly demonstrations in Australia at the weekend.

A leading Vietnamese dissident Buddhist monk condemned the violence in Tibet and said "brute force cannot engender peace" in the Himalayan region ruled by China.

Thich Quang Do, whose Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam is outlawed by the Communist Party government, has been imprisoned or lived under restrictions at his monastery in Ho Chi Minh City over decades of opposition to authorities.

"The peaceful protests of Buddhists all over Asia -- in Tibet, Burma and Vietnam -- are being quelled with brutality and bloodshed," Do said in a statement distributed by e-mail through the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau.

"The Chinese government says repression will bring 'order and stability'. But we Buddhists know that violence cannot dispel violence, that brute force cannot engender peace."

(Additional reporting by Paris, New York, Berlin, Hanoi, Seoul bureaux; Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Jerry Norton)