“The Chinese side expresses its strong indignation and resolute opposition toward this,” Jiang said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.

Meanwhile, state media labeled a group linked to the Dalai Lama’s India-based government-in-exile a “terrorist organization.” China claims that recent anti-Chinese protests were part of a violent campaign to overthrow Chinese rule and sabotage this summer’s Beijing Olympics.

The resolution in Congress sponsored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and passed on Wednesday called on Beijing to “end its crackdown on nonviolent Tibetan protesters” and put a stop to cultural, religious, economic and linguistic “repression.”

While noting reports of deadly rioting in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas in March, the resolution called China’s response “disproportionate and extreme.” It said hundreds of Tibetans had been killed and thousands detained, but did not say how it obtained its information.

China says 22 people were killed in the riots, many in arson attacks, and over 1,000 detained. The Dalai Lama’s India-based government-in-exile says more than 140 people were killed.

The resolution also called on China to begin an unconditional “results-based dialogue” with the 72-year-old Dalai Lama to address Tibetan concerns and work toward a long-term solution to the dispute.

China has held six rounds of contacts with representatives of the Dalai Lama with no apparent result, and has demanded he meet numerous preconditions before it will talk to him directly.

Jiang said the resolution failed to condemn the “Dalai clique” that China blames for orchestrating the protests that began peacefully on March 10 among Buddhist monks in Lhasa before spiraling into violence four days later. Beijing has called the protests a plot to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games and advance the cause of Tibetan independence.

The resolution “makes willful accusations against the … lawful handling of the serious violent criminal incident in Lhasa and crudely interferes in China’s internal affairs,” Jiang said.

China has stepped up condemnation of Tibetan protesters following major demonstrations when the Olympic torch passed through San Francisco, London and Paris this week on its relay around the world.

Thousands of protesters angry at China’s Tibet policies, human rights record and friendly ties with Sudan have attempted to block the torch’s passage, with some individuals seeking to grab it or extinguish the flame.

The San Francisco route was changed and shortened to sidestep demonstrations, but the International Olympic Committee said it had no plans to cancel the rest of the relay, which was to continue Friday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

On Friday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency accused the Tibetan Youth Congress of planning the rioting in Lhasa, saying it “exposed the terrorist nature” of the group.

The congress organized recent protests in India and elsewhere overseas, coinciding with the demonstrations that began peacefully among Buddhist monks in Lhasa before spiraling into violence four days later.

“The crimes made the organization look like a kin member of al-Qaida, Chechnyan armed terrorists and ‘East Turkistan’ separatists,” Xinhua said. East Turkistan is another name for China-controlled Xinjiang, where separatists among its Muslim Turkic ethnic group have been staging a low-intensity insurgency.

Xinhua cited alleged statements and speeches by Youth Congress leaders, as well as a purported plot to smuggle weapons into Tibet to launch attacks. The allegations were impossible to verify.

“Judging by these criteria, the TYC is a terrorist organization in a pure sense,” Xinhua said.

The accusation was among the strongest against an exile Tibetan group in the latest round of anti-government protests. Chinese police earlier this month accused radicals of organizing “suicide squads to launch violent attacks.”

Scholars say the accusations help the government justify its crackdown and demonize the opposition while driving a wedge between the government-in-exile and groups like the Tibetan Youth Congress that have challenged the Dalai Lama’s policy of nonviolence.

China plans to carry the Olympic torch over Mount Everest and through Tibet, but jitters about protests during that leg apparently prompted a reversal of a decision to reopen Tibet to foreign tourists on May 1, the start of a three-day national holiday.

Foreigners have not received permits to visit the Himalayan region since the Lhasa protests. Tour operators said Thursday the Tibetan Tourism Bureau told them this week to stop arranging trips for foreigners. They said the bureau cited the need for safe passage for the torch relay to the summit of Everest, as well as continuing safety concerns in Lhasa.

On Thursday, the Dalai Lama said he supports China’s hosting of the Olympics but insisted that nobody had the right to tell protesters demanding freedom for Tibet “to shut up.”

The protests, which Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating, have focused international attention on China’s human rights record ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. The U.S. has called on China to address Tibetans’ grievances and engage in direct talks with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader.

But China has angrily rejected all calls for dialogue, and Tibet’s hardline Communist Party chief was quoted Wednesday in a particularly viscous attack on the Dalai Lama.

“The Dalai is a wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast,” Zhang Qingli was quoted in the Tibet Daily as saying at a meeting of the Tibet government.

“We are now engaged in a fierce blood-and-fire battle with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death battle between us and the enemy,” Zhang said.

On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama’s supporters of organizing the violent clashes in hopes of sabotaging the Olympics and bolstering their campaign for independence in the Himalayan territory.

The communist government has promised leniency for protesters who handed themselves in — and pledged to harshly punish those who did not.

“Those criminals … shouldn’t think they can get lucky. All criminals will definitely be caught in the net,” the official Tibet Daily newspaper said on its Web site.

It was impossible to confirm the reports of surrender, and no figures were given for people hunted down and arrested.

Foreign media are banned from Tibet, and China’s entirely state-controlled media have reported only the official version of events, in which the government has said rioters killed 16 people. The government said troops did not fire on protesters and has denied claims by overseas Tibetan groups that 80 were killed.

The official Xinhua News Agency said mobs smashed and torched shops, homes, banks, government schools and offices, along with dozens of vehicles, setting fires in more than 300 locations. Xinhua said losses to businesses were estimated at more than $14 million.

Police barred foreigners from traveling to areas outside Tibet with large Tibetan populations and were seen removing Tibetans from vehicles traveling into lower lying areas populated mainly by Chinese.

Chinese forces occupied the Himalayan region in 1950 after several decades of effective independence.

Initially led by monks, the demonstrations began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, and then spiraled out of control.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet during the uprising, has urged his followers to remain peaceful, saying he would resign as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if violence got out of control. However, he also suggested China may have fomented unrest in the Lhasa and nearby provinces to discredit him.

Critics say China fuels such anger through harsh restrictions on Tibetan culture and Buddhism — including routine vilification of the Dalai Lama, who is deeply revered by most Tibetans. The government has also been accused of marginalizing Tibetans economically, in part by encouraging migration to Tibet by members of the Han Chinese ethnic majority.

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for dialogue and tolerance between Chinese and Tibetans and expressed “sadness and pain” for the violence in Tibet.

Because of the crackdown on protests, some Tibetan activist groups have argued that the Olympic torch relay should not go through Tibet. Beijing plans for the torch to be carried to the top of Mount Everest.

Organizing committee Executive Vice President Jiang Xiaoyu said the relay would go through Tibet as planned, saying the ascent to the top of the world’s tallest mountain would be the “highlight” of the relay and “a great feat in Olympic history.”

On Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner backtracked on suggestions he was open to the idea of dignitaries boycotting the Games’ opening ceremonies, calling the proposal “unrealistic.”

Lhasa was reportedly calm on Wednesday and under a tight security presence that moved in over the weekend.

An employee of the local Coca-Cola bottler said a small demonstration was held in the city on Tuesday, but protesters had fled when troops arrived. He declined to give his name for fear of harassment from authorities.

He said the company had conducted no business since Friday when customers’ shops and supermarkets had been attacked and looted.

Protests spilled over from Tibet into surrounding provinces in recent days, as police and soldiers set up checkpoints across a wide swath of western China.

Officers turned back an Associated Press photographer traveling west from Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu near the Wolong panda preserve. Officers said an order was issued Monday barring foreigners from all Tibetan areas in the province for 10 days.

An official with the Sichuan Foreign Affairs Department said no official notice had been issued, but said she had heard of two cases of police turning reporters away.

“I wouldn’t suggest trying again,” said the woman, who like many Chinese government workers, gave only her surname, Yuan.

China imposed a ban on tour groups traveling to Tibet last week, dealing a blow to the region’s fast-growing tourist industries.

Officers were also seen pulling Tibetans in traditional dress off buses leaving Tibetan regions, searching their luggage and questioning them. It was not clear whether they were allowed to continue their journeys.

Tibetans in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu tried to enter an area where the United Nations offices are located, but were stopped by police.

In Bangkok, about 20 demonstrators unfurled a Tibetan flag outside the Chinese Embassy and called on Beijing to “immediately stop the killing and human rights abuses” in Tibet.