Untitled Document
Last Updated: Thursday, 20 March 2008, 16:40 GMT
Police 'shot at Tibet protesters'
Chinese police opened fire and wounded four protesters "in self-defence" last Sunday in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, the Xinhua news agency says.
The report is the first time Chinese authorities have admitted hurting anyone since demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet began last week.
China's government had previously said 13 "innocent people" were stabbed or burnt to death by "rioters" in Lhasa.
Exiled Tibetan leaders say at least 99 people have been killed in the unrest.
Earlier on Thursday, China admitted for the first time that the protests had spread outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region to nearby provinces where large numbers of ethnic Tibetans live.
Xinhua said Sunday's police shootings took place in Aba county, close to Sichuan's border with Qinghai province. An earlier report had said the police had shot dead four rioters, but it was quickly corrected.
The state-owned news agency had previously said only that "mobsters" had caused "great damage" to shops and government offices in the area.
Crackdown
The BBC's China editor, Shirong Chen, says the situation in parts of western China is now extremely tense, with security being ratcheted up and many arrests.
Hundreds of troops have been seen pouring into Tibetan areas. On Wednesday alone, BBC reporters saw more than 400 troop carriers and other vehicles on the main road - the largest mobilisation witnessed since the unrest began.
The authorities have also placed strict limits on Western journalists trying to report on the unrest. A German journalist who was forced out of Lhasa on Thursday said security forces had told him he was the last foreign journalist in the city.
And officials said 24 people had been arrested after demonstrations in the Tibetan city of Lhasa, and 170 protesters had surrendered to authorities. The authorities had threatened "harsh punishments" for those who failed to meet a Monday deadline.
Earlier, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, reiterated his willingness to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao if he received "concrete indications" of what the Chinese government can offer.
But senior Chinese officials have repeatedly accused him of orchestrating the protests from his base in the Indian town of Dharamsala, and the foreign ministry once again labelled him a "splittist" on Thursday.