FACTBOX: Presidential candidates on China and the Olympics

(Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidates made the following comments as anti-China protests took place in the United states before the Olympic flame was carried through the streets of San Francisco on Wednesday on its way to the Beijing Olympics.

* DEMOCRATIC SEN. BARACK OBAMA

"In our policy toward China, we have not been consistent enough and tough enough in pushing them to deal with Tibet properly."

"We have to take a stronger stance and it's got to be more consistent over time," he said at a campaign stop in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

Obama also said the United States lacked leverage with China because the country holds so much U.S. debt. "If we are running huge deficits and big national debts and we're borrowing money constantly from China that gives us less leverage. It gives us less leverage to talk about human rights. It also is giving us less leverage to talk about the uneven relationship -- trading relationship with China."

* DEMOCRATIC SEN. HILLARY CLINTON

"I believe that the president should not attend the opening (Olympic) ceremonies because that is giving a seal of approval by our United States government, unless and until the Chinese take actions to deal more forthrightly with their human rights challenges, to begin to lift the oppression on the Tibetans and restore cultural and religious freedom, work with the rest of the international community to try to resolve the genocide in Darfur."

"In these matters the Chinese government has to change. That is what I believe the president should be looking for, and using the pressure of his not attending the opening ceremonies as the means to exert leverage on the Chinese government," she told a news conference in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

(Editing by David Storey; Washington Bureau 202-898-5660)