The article, published by the Xinhua news agency, appeared aimed at countering any foreign criticism of dramatically tightened security ahead of Tuesday's sensitive anniversary of an anti-Chinese uprising.

"Is it not crucial for the central government to take action to maintain social stability in Tibet, to protect the innocent from harm?" the commentary said.

"Any other government in the world would be on alert too, had they been in China's shoes."

The failed revolt 50 years ago sent the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, into exile and began a half-century period during which Tibetan exiles claim their culture has been systematically crushed by Chinese control.

Following riots on last year's 49th anniversary that spread across Tibetan regions of the country, China has tightened up to prevent unrest this year.

Xinhua's commentary was issued only in English, signalling it was aimed at a foreign audience.

It said China must maintain "social stability" in order to promote Tibetan development.

In an apparent swipe at critics of Beijing's record on Tibetan culture, Xinhua also said China would push modernisation to prevent the devoutly Buddhist region remaining a specimen of "cultural stereotypes," without elaborating.

Tibetan exiles say more than 80,000 people were killed in China's military response to the 1959 uprising.

Last year's anniversary saw unrest that not only angered Chinese leaders, who were building up to the August Olympics, but also made Tibet a top agenda item for world leaders dealing with Beijing.

Tibetan exiles say more than 200 people died when Chinese security forces clamped down, although China denies this and says "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths.

Foreign tourists have been banned from Tibet during March, according to travel agents and hotels there, while international media are also barred from visiting Tibet independently.

earlier related report
China detains two Tibetan protesters: group
China has detained two Tibetan women, one of them a Buddhist nun, for protesting in support of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, a rights group said Saturday.

The two women were detained Thursday in Kardze, a Tibetan area in southwest China's Sichuan province, the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

"The two women, a nun and layperson, staged separate protests in Kardze town, handing out leaflets and calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet," the statement said.

The two women had also called for respect for human rights and religious freedom, and urged the release of Tibetan prisoners, the group said.

It said the whereabouts of the two women were unknown. The report could not immediately be confirmed.

The reported arrests come amid growing tension ahead of the 50th anniversary Tuesday of a failed uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule.

At the end of t

he uprising the Dalai Lama, now 74 years old, went into exile in India.

The International Campaign for Tibet also said in its statement that Tibetans in Kardze had boycotted official celebrations of the Tibetan New Year in late February.

Instead, they launched prayer ceremonies for those killed during anti-Chinese unrest in and around Tibet in March last year, the statement said.

Activist groups said China had hugely increased security across the region although several protests have already taken place in recent weeks.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending in troops to "liberate" the Buddhist region.

earlier related report
An unlikely journey to Tibetan dissent
From her Beijing apartment adorned with a banned photo of the Dalai Lama, Woeser has emerged as one of Tibet's most famous writers and unlikely critics of Chinese rule in the Himalayan region.

The 43-year-old is the daughter of a Han Chinese army officer and a Tibetan communist cadre, but her loyalties are with the people of Tibet ahead of this week's sensitive 50th anniversary of an uprising against China.

"How is it that in their own land, Tibetans have so little freedom?" Woeser, who describes herself as "three-quarter Tibetan, one-quarter Han Chinese," told AFP over the phone in fluent Mandarin, the language she grew up speaking.

Woeser, who like many Tibetans uses one name, declined to meet for a face-to-face interview, wary of China's communist authorities who have kept a close watch on her in recent years.

She says her phone is tapped and that she is followed when she goes out, but she still criticises Chinese government policies in Tibet on her blog.

Nothing in the first 26 years of Woeser's upbringing, however, set her up for a life of dissent.

Woeser was born in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, then moved to southwest China's Sichuan province when she was four, when her father -- who was half Tibetan, half Han Chinese -- shifted posts in the military.

"The education we received taught us in what ways Tibet was bad, and we were young and believed it," she said of her schooling.

But when Woeser moved back to Lhasa in 1990 after graduating from university, she experienced Chinese rule in Tibet first-hand and decided to devote her life to spreading her version of the truth.

As editor of a magazine on Tibetan literature, Woeser said she and her co-workers were forced to attend "political study" sessions every Thursday.

"These would suddenly announce that you couldn't go to temples, or you couldn't go worship Buddha," said Woeser, a devout Buddhist.

Woeser also came into contact with many Tibetans, including monks who told her of their frequent detentions and other mistreatment.

She says Tibetans suffer constant discrimination, religious and political repression, but China denies this, saying it has implemented better living standards since it "liberated" the Himalayan region in 1951.

For many years, Woeser wove her feelings about Tibet into poetry she wrote, expressing her views under the radar as she continued to live in Lhasa.

But in 2003 she published "Notes on Tibet," a collection of short stories with favourable references to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader whom Chinese authorities accuse of being a separatist.

Woeser lost her magazine job in Lhasa, and has since had four of her former blogs shut down or hacked into, been placed under house arrest and once detained by police.

But her sacking in Lhasa also led her to Beijing, where she married Wang Lixiong, a Han Chinese intellectual, whom she had first noticed in 1999 after reading a book he wrote that was critical about China's rule of Tibet.

"I remember thinking I had never seen a Han Chinese who could write about Tibet so truthfully," she said, giggling over the phone at the recollection of their blooming relationship.

The two got in contact, Wang came to see her in Lhasa, and they started dating, forming one of the most famous intellectual couples in China.

With the support of Wang, 56, Woeser continues her controversial writing in her Beijing flat, surrounded by Tibetan photos and art, as well as the Dalai Lama's image.

"Woeser's voice is one of the most remarkable ones coming from Tibetans today," said Dibyesh Anand, a Tibet expert at the London-based Westminster University.

"The most important aspect of her.. is that her writings and voice allow exiled Tibetans to argue that a criticism of Chinese government is not the handiwork of a handful of diasporic Tibetans or of traditional monks and nuns."

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