China takes aim at Western media's Tibet coverage

By Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - China called foreign media's reporting on unrest in Tibet a "textbook of bad examples" on Thursday, keeping up a wave of objections to Western coverage of the region it has largely sealed to outsiders.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the comments in response to a question as to whether the government was behind the Chinese-language Web site www.anti-cnn.com, which is devoted to exposing what it says are inaccuracies in reporting on Tibet.

"Is it really necessary for the Chinese government to incite this?" Qin asked a news conference. "There is such a Web site because people are very angry about those false reports."

His remarks come as China's Foreign Ministry escorted a small group of journalists into Lhasa for a closely monitored trip, the first time it has allowed foreigners into the region since a March 14 riot.

The riot capped several days of peaceful, monk-led protests against Chinese policies in the remote, which the government says were instigated by the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since a failed 1959 uprising against Beijing's Communist rule.

Tourists, who need permits to travel to the deeply Buddhist region, were advised to leave following the violence, and journalists are typically not allowed to go to Tibet without government minders.

A massive influx of armed police has also kept reporters out of ethnic Tibetan areas of western China that have seen ongoing protests and in the aftermath of the riot it blocked access to several Web sites that reported on the region.

Qin said Western journalism on the issue violated professional ethics and was "a textbook of bad examples". It teaches the Chinese people about so-called justice and objectivity claimed by some Western media".