The National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on Thursday strongly condemned a U.S. Congress resolution on Tibet.

"It (the resolution) is a gross interference in China's domestic affairs and offend the Chinese people. We are strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to it," the NPC Foreign Affairs Committee said in a statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of China's stance, approved an anti-China resolution on Tibet, which distorts the facts of Tibet's democratic reform and glorifies the Dalai Lama, slandering the religious policy of the Chinese government, the statement said.

The resolution severely runs counter to the norms of international relations and grossly intervenes in China's internal affairs, the statement said.

Tibet is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory and Tibetan affairs are purely China's domestic affairs, the statement said, adding issues related to Tibet concern China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and is China's core interests.

"The NPC and the Chinese people have all along been opposed to any country and any people intervening in China's internal affairs using the Tibet issue," said the statement.

Also on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Zhaoxu urged the resolution's backers to correct their mistakes immediately, stop interfering in China's internal affairs using the Tibet issue, and stop harming Sino-U.S. relations.

The widely-acknowledged progress has been made in the Tibet Autonomous Region in all aspects of society since the democratic reforms 50 years ago, and the Tibetan people benefited from it, said the statement.

It said that all sorts of rights enjoyed by the Tibetan people have been ensured by the Chinese laws including the Constitution and the law on regional national autonomy.

"China's Tibet policy won heartfelt support from people of all nationalities, including the Tibetan ethnic group," said the statement.

The Dalai Lama dressed himself up as a spokesman of the "Tibet people" in the international arena to make trouble and intensify his separatist activities, attempting to restore feudal serfdom that integrating religion and state, said the statement.

"Facts demonstrate that our disputes with the Dalai Lama's supporters is neither the nationals issue, nor religious issue, or human rights, or autonomy for Tibet, but a principled campaign concerning unification or separation, moving forward or backward," it said.

The statement said a few U.S. congress members made the resolution not because they were truly concerned with the social development and people's wellbeing in Tibet. They only try to use Dalai Lama and Tibet issue to confuse the public and damage Tibet's stability, thus infringing on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement urged those U.S. congress members to observe the principles in the international relations, honor the commitment by the U.S. government of recognizing Tibet as a part of Chinese territory and opposing "Tibet Independence".

The statement also demanded them to respect fact, discard prejudice, correct the errors and stop any act of using Tibet to interfere in China's internal affairs and harm Sino-U.S. relations.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2009)