Tibetan exiles burn the Chinese national flag during an indefinite hunger strike in Rangpo village, about 80 km (50 miles) north of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri, March 26, 2008. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

BEIJING (Reuters) - China stepped up detentions in the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Wednesday and vowed tighter control over monasteries to contain protests spreading through its ethnic Tibetan regions.

The western province of Qinghai was the latest area to report anti-government activities, with hundreds of civilians staging a sit-down protest after paramilitary police stopped them from marching, a Beijing-based source who spoke to residents said.

"They were beating up monks, which will only infuriate ordinary people," the source said of the protest on Tuesday in Qinghai's Xinghai county.

A resident in the area confirmed the demonstration, saying paramilitaries dispersed the 200 to 300 protesters after half and hour, that the area was crawling with armed security forces and that workers were kept inside their offices.

The Tibet unrest -- and China's response to it -- has also become a lightning rod for criticism of its Communist authorities ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

The head of the European Parliament on Wednesday questioned whether European leaders should attend the opening of the Games and invited the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to address the EU legislature on events in Tibet.

The unrest began with a series of peaceful marches in Lhasa earlier this month that soon led to a deadly riot. China says 19 people died in the violence, while representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile say 140 died in clashes.

Protests later spread to parts of provinces bordering Tibet with large Tibetan populations.

The Beijing-based source said authorities were questioning people who had witnessed the Lhasa protests.

"It's very harsh. They are taking in and questioning anyone who saw the protests," the source said. "The prisons are full. Detainees are being held at prisons in counties outside Lhasa."

China has pinned the blame for the protests on the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India. He fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and denies he masterminded the demonstrations.

DEBATE OVER OLYMPICS

Speaking to U.S. President George W. Bush by telephone on Wednesday, President Hu Jintao defended Beijing's handling of the demonstrations and asserted that the Dalai Lama was behind violence and "efforts to disrupt the Beijing Olympics", which Hu said prevented the government from conducting talks with him.

"Any responsible government, faced with such violent criminal acts that are a serious violation of human rights, that seriously disrupt social order and seriously jeopardize people's lives, property and safety, would not just sit there and watch," a statement on the ministry's Web site paraphrased Hu as saying.

Despite international calls for Beijing to use restraint in its response to the unrest, the United States and Britain have reiterated their support for the Beijing Games.

On Wednesday, the speaker of the Himalayan region's parliament in exile said the Games should go ahead but be used to pressurize Beijing to conform with international rules.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday refused to rule out a possible boycott of the Olympics.

China's Foreign Ministry criticized French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Wednesday for saying he could not tolerate the crackdown and French Junior Minister for Human Rights, Rama Yade, for saying she would meet the Dalai Lama if he visited France.

Echoing China's public security minister, Chinese scholars vowed to press ahead with "patriotic education" in Tibet's monasteries, accusing monks there of being duped by the Dalai Lama into supporting separatism.

"The purpose of patriotic education is because the Dalai clique has been trying hard to disrupt development in Tibet and disrupt the normal practices of Tibetan Buddhism," Dramdul, who heads the Religious Studies Institute at the China Tibetology Research Centre, told a news conference.

RESENTMENT

Protests continued elsewhere. A Tibetan man tried to set himself on fire in eastern India, as security forces stopped him and hundreds of other marchers from entering Sikkim state, which borders China, according to a local police officer.

A small group of foreign and Chinese reporters arrived in Lhasa on Wednesday on a tightly supervised trip organized by the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama expressed surprise when told about the visit.

"Really? Then very good, but it should be with complete freedom -- only then you can assess the real situation," he told reporters in New Delhi.

In a letter circulated by the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, a Lhasa resident described tight controls on religion and resentment over an influx of Han Chinese residents since a rail link was built to the remote, mountain region.

But, illustrating the gulf in views about the cause of unrest between Beijing and Lhasa, Lhagpa Phuntshogs, who directs the China Tibetology Research Centre, said the Dalai Lama had instigated marches among monks, who wanted to restore serfdom.

"What do they want? I think it's very clear that they want to try to restore the old theocracy in Tibet. The separatist elements are not happy with the end of theocracy in Tibet ... and they are not happy with the end of backwardness in Tibet."

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