Clinton presses China on Tibet, blind lawyer

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday voiced alarm about Beijing's treatment of Tibetans and a blind rights activist as she prepared for talks with her Chinese counterpart.

In Honolulu for an Asia-Pacific summit, Clinton said the United States welcomed a 'thriving China' but pressed the growing Asian power on both human rights and its economic policies.

"When we see reports of lawyers, artists and others who are detained or 'disappeared,' the United States speaks up both publicly and privately," Clinton said in a speech at the East-West Center think-tank shortly before a scheduled meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

"We are alarmed by recent incidents in Tibet of young people lighting themselves on fire in desperate acts of protest, as well as the continued house arrest of the Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng," she said.

"We continue to call on China to embrace a different path."

Clinton is the highest level US official to raise concern publicly about Tibet and Chen amid growing alarm in recent months.

Ethnically Tibetan areas of China have seen a wave of self-immolations by Buddhist monks and nuns in protest at what they see as Beijing's stifling rule. Rights groups say that at least five monks and two nuns have died.

Chen, a self-trained lawyer who has been blind since childhood, spent four years in prison after documenting late-term abortions and forced sterilizations under Beijing's one-child policy.

He was released last year, but rights campaigners say he and his wife were severely beaten earlier this year in apparent retaliation for the release of a video smuggled out of their home in which Chen railed about his house arrest.

Chinese activists organized through the Internet have been flocking to his village in recent weeks in hopes of freeing him from house arrest, but campaigners say that paid thugs have beaten up all who come close.

Clinton also raised concerns about China's economic policies, including its alleged preference for state-run firms in procurement and the value of its yuan currency, which critics say is kept artificially low to boost exports.

"US firms want fair opportunities to export to China's markets and a level playing field for competition," she said.

"Chinese firms want to be able to buy more high-tech products from the United States, make more investments here and be accorded the same terms of access that market economies enjoy. We can work together on these objectives - but China needs to take steps to reform," Clinton said.