HOWZAT

China had already raised its concerns about previous comments by Mr Rudd in which he called for Beijing to resume talks with the Dalai Lama.

In an interview with The Times yesterday, Mr Rudd said that he would not allow Chinese officials to provide their own security for the Olympic torch when it is carried through Canberra this month.

There have been complaints in London and Paris of aggressive behaviour by the blue-tracksuited security detail of Chinese paramilitary police escorting the flame.

Mr Rudd is due to meet the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao tomorrow, and President Hu Jintao at the weekend at an economic forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.

In the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu a group of Buddhist monks astonished reporters visiting the Labrang temple with a protest against the crackdown in Tibet. It was the second time in two weeks that monks have risked arrest to embarrass the Chinese authorities.

Just as the journalists entered a courtyard, near the entrance to the sprawling monastery, about 15 monks burst out of a building shouting in Tibetan. Two carried a banned Tibetan flag that they had stretched out between them on two poles.

Lucy Hornby, a correspondent for Reuters, said: "They were hollering in Tibetan, holding up banners with slogans in Tibetan. They were extremely emotional and we had difficulty calming them down so that they would speak to us in Chinese."

One young monk, speaking in Chinese, his voice breaking and on the verge of tears, said: “The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet. We are not asking for Tibetan independence, we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now.”

The monks threw traditional white Tibetan "khatag" scarfs of blessing around the necks of the photographers and television cameramen as they recorded the demonstration. Officials did not try to interfere, but several older monks appeared and gently persuaded the young monks to disperse, the Reuters reporter said.

Caroline Puel, a reporter with France’s Le Point magazine, said that the journalists’ government minders seemed “very surprised” by the outburst.

The tour continued with a visit to the huge scripture hall where several hundred monks were seated in silence on carpet-covered ranks of cushions. Some applauded when the journalists with white scarfs around their necks entered the hall.

A Labrang monastery official said that the monks may have violated national security and would be dealt with in accordance with the law. However, a senior official of the provincial Buddhist academy said that the monks would only face legal process if they were found to have broken the law. He hinted that this might be unlikely for the 15 young monks.

On March 27 a group of about 30 monks disrupted a similar government-organised visit by journalists to Jokhang monastery in Lhasa. Officials have said that they are allowed to voice their opinions but not to break the law.

The Dalai Lama fled China after the 1959 uprising. China refuses to meet him or to allow his return, and has blamed him for fomenting the unrest.

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