A senior EU official said European countries should not rule out threatening China with an Olympic boycott if violence continues in Tibet. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi also joined the growing chorus of critics.

Fighting back against the criticism, Beijing has begun releasing tallies of statements of support from foreign governments and trying to get its version of events before the international community.

“It is a clear proof that the international community is on the side of China,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency, which reported that 100 governments have endorsed China’s handling of the protests.

China’s government has portrayed the protests as having been instigated by supporters of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

“We must see through the secessionist forces’ evil intentions, uphold the banner of maintaining social stability … and resolutely crush the ‘Tibet independence’ forces’ conspiracy,” the People’s Daily said in an editorial.

The protests, which started in the Tibetan capital Lhasa on the March 10 anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, turned violent four days later and touched off demonstrations among Tibetans in three other provinces.

The movement has become the largest challenge to China’s control of Tibet since the 1959 uprising. It also has threatened Beijing’s attempts to project an image of unity and prosperity ahead of the Beijing Summer Olympics.

Beijing has responded by smothering Tibetan areas with troops and publishing a “Most Wanted” list of 21 protesters, appealing to people to turn them in.

Beijing’s official death toll from last week’s rioting in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa rose to 22, with the Xinhua News Agency reporting that five more civilians and a police officer died. The Tibetan government-in-exile has said 99 Tibetans have been killed — 80 in Lhasa and 19 in Gansu province.

Visiting Paris on Friday, McCain said China’s crackdown “is not correct” and expressed hope Beijing would seek a peaceful resolution.

“The people there are being subjected to mistreatment that is not acceptable with the conduct of a world power, which China is,” McCain said in response to a question by a Chinese reporter.

“There must be respect for human rights, and I would hope that the Chinese are actively seeking a peaceful resolution to this situation that exists which harms not only the human rights of the people there but also the image of China in the world,” said McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

The White House said Thursday the crackdown is not cause for President Bush to cancel his attendance at the Olympics. But it requested access to the region to see how Chinese police were dealing with detained protesters.

The president of the European Parliament said in remarks released Saturday that European countries should not rule out threatening China with an Olympic boycott if violence continues in Tibet.

“Beijing must decide itself, it should immediately negotiate with the Dalai Lama,” Hans-Gert Poettering was quoted as saying by Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “If there continue to be no signals of compromise, I see boycott measures as justified.”

On Friday, Bild quoted German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier as saying he had warned China its response to the crisis in Tibet may jeopardize the Summer Olympics. Frank criticized the Chinese government’s lack of transparency in the ongoing conflict.

However, the European Union said Thursday a boycott would be counterproductive to efforts to improve human rights in China.

On Friday, Pelosi lent her support to the Tibetan cause on a visit to the Dalai Lama at his headquarters in India, calling China’s crackdown “a challenge to the conscience of the world.”

Pelosi, long a fierce critic of China, called for an international investigation and dismissed Beijing’s claim that the Dalai Lama was behind the fighting as making “no sense.” The Dalai Lama, who received the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, says he does not seek independence but wants genuine autonomy to protect Tibet’s unique Buddhist culture.

Without mentioning Pelosi by name, the foreign ministry spokesman Qin said China opposes “any encouragement and support for the secessionist schemes of the Dalai clique.”

In Lhasa, shops reopened but the police presence was heavy, said residents reached by phone. The Potala Palace, the traditional seat of Tibetan rulers, and the Jokang Temple, a popular site for tourists and Buddhist pilgrims, were still closed.

“There are People’s Armed Police patrolling the streets around the clock,” said an employee of the Shambala Hotel, who refused to give her name due to fear of reprisal.

On Friday, authorities intensified a manhunt for people accused of violence, posting their photos — taken from video cameras and security footage — on major Internet portals.

The 21 people are accused of endangering national security, and cited for beating, smashing, looting and arson. One suspect was shown wielding a long sword and another was a mustached man who had been shown on news programs slashing another with a foot-long blade.

Xinhua said two of the 21 suspects were arrested and a third turned himself in. Authorities offered rewards for information and promised anonymity to tipsters.

Police have arrested 24 people and another 183 turned themselves in, Xinhua said.

Outside of Lhasa, Beijing has deployed troops across a wide swath of western China where more than half of China’s 5.4 million Tibetans live. Moving from town to town, police set up blockades and checkpoints to keep Tibetans in and journalists out.

The mobilization was helping authorities reassert control after demonstrations flared in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces, inspired by monks in Lhasa last week.

State television, in its first footage of the confrontation between protesters and police last Sunday in the Tibetan town of Aba, showed dozens of crimson-robed monks charging at a line of police standing behind plastic riot shields. Crowds of ordinary people hurled rocks and one threw a molotov cocktail as cars burned in the town ringed by snow-peaked mountains.

Xinhua said earlier that police opened fire on the crowd, wounding four and that protesters tried to break into the police armory to steal weapons. Tibet support groups say police killed at least eight and posted photos of bloody corpses on the Internet.

The demonstrations were the fiercest challenge to Beijing’s rule in the region in nearly two decades, leading to sympathy protests elsewhere and embarrassing China ahead of the Olympic Games.

Along with 80 killed, some 72 people were injured in the protests, said Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the exiles. He said the figures were confirmed by multiple sources inside Tibet who had counted corpses. China’s state media said 10 people died.

Meanwhile, hundreds of armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Lhasa two days after Tibetans torched buildings and stoned Chinese residents. Hong Kong Cable TV reported some 200 military vehicles, carrying 40 to 60 armed soldiers each, drove into the city center of Lhasa on Sunday.

Footage showed the streets were mostly empty other than the security forces. Messages on loudspeakers warned residents to “Discern between enemies and friends, maintain order” and “Have a clear stand to oppose violence, maintain stability.”

The Tibetan spiritual leader, speaking in Dharmsala, the north Indian hill town where Tibet’s government-in-exile is based, said “Some respected international organization can find out what the situation is in Tibet and what is the cause.”

“Whether the (Chinese) government there admits or not, there is a problem. There is an ancient cultural heritage that is facing serious danger,” the Dalai Lama said. “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place.”

It was not immediately clear if he was referring to China’s overall policies in Tibet when he spoke of a genocide, or the recent crackdown.

The violence erupted just two weeks before China’s Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on China “to exercise restraint in dealing with these protests,” while the State Department issued a travel alert for Americans in the region. Her statement also called for China to release monks and others jailed for protesting.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. But the Tibetan exiles said that, of the 80 they confirmed were killed, 26 alone died Saturday next to the Drapchi prison in Lhasa. Five girls were killed in the town’s central Tibetan neighborhood, said Tenzin Taklha, the senior aide to the Dalai Lama.

China restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to independently verify the casualties and the scale of protests and suppression.

The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.

Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet’s independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.

Amid the clampdown that followed, foreign tourists in Lhasa were told to leave, a hotel manager and travel guide said, with the guide adding that some were turned back at the airport.

Even as Chinese forces appeared to reassert control in Lhasa, sympathy protests had erupted on Saturday in an important Tibetan town 750 miles away in Gansu Province.

Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans after they marched from the historic Labrang monastery and smashed windows in the county police headquarters in Xiahe, witnesses said.

On Sunday, Gansu provincial Governor Xu Shousheng called the protests “a planned and organized destructive activity” and blamed the “outside Dalai group” for instigating the riots.

Also in recent days, demonstrations by Tibetan exiles and their supporters sprouted up in neighboring Nepal, New York, Switzerland and Australia.

The Chinese government is hoping a successful Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics has already attracted scrutiny of China’s human rights record and its pollution problems.

So far, international criticism of the crackdown in Tibet has been mild. The U.S. and European Union called for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.

“What is happening in Tibet and Beijing’s responses to it will not affect the games very much unless the issue really gets out of control,” said Xu Guoqi, a China-born historian at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet. “We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. “On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.”

The details emerging from witness accounts and government statements suggested Beijing was preparing a methodical campaign to deal with the unrest — one that if carefully modulated would minimize bloodshed and avoid wrecking Beijing’s grand plans for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.

In Lhasa, law-enforcement agencies issued a notice offering leniency for demonstrators who surrender before the end of Monday and threatening severe punishment for those who do not.