FACTBOX: Political flash points in China

(Reuters) - Following are five political flash points in China ahead of this year's Beijing Olympics.

TIBET:

* China said 10 people burnt to death in riots in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday in the fiercest pro-independence protests to have rocked the region in two decades, scarring China's image months before the Olympics.

* The Dalai Lama, the main religious leader of devoutly Buddhist Tibet, fled on horseback after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and now lives in exile in northern India. China accuses him of seeking independence for Tibet. He says he only wants greater autonomy for it.

* Within Tibet, simply having the Dalai Lama's picture can be grounds for imprisonment. Critics say Buddhist monks and nuns loyal to the Dalai Lama have been jailed and tortured.

INFLATION:

* China's high January and February readings for inflation have increased pressure on the government to take action to counter price rises, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on Wednesday.

* Annual consumer inflation jumped to 8.7 percent in February after hitting 7.1 percent in January, the worst in more than 11 years.

* Grumbling about high prices is already a constant in markets across a country where inflation has sown the seeds of social unrest down the ages, and the authorities will want to pull out the stops to avoid problems ahead of the Olympics in August.

TAIWAN:

* Chinese President Hu Jintao has called on the military to improve its ability to "win high-tech regional wars", state media said less than two weeks before arch rival Taiwan heads to the polls.

* Taiwan chooses a new president on March 22 to replace Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence sympathies have angered China.

* China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. It has vowed to bring the island back under mainland rule, by force if necessary.

XINJIANG:

* Chinese police shot and killed two members of a "terrorist gang" and rounded up 15 others during a raid last month in the restive northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency said last week.

* Xinjiang is home to 8 million Uighurs, a Turkic, largely Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia. Many resent the growing Han Chinese economic dominance in Xinjiang, as well as government controls on religion and culture.