Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu Tuesday poured scorn on a Geneva-based rights group's report that said 1.5 million Beijing residents would be displaced due to the 2008 Olympic Games.

Jiang specified that all residents that had been relocated due to Olympic-related constructed had received full support in changing residence including compensation in cash and had never been forced to move outside the city.

"The report is simply groundless," Jiang said.

Nine major venues are being built for the Beijing Olympic Games involving the resettlement of 6,037 households since 2002, Jiang said.

Also on Tuesday Beijing reiterated its position towards the US missile defense system in Northeast Asia, calling on all relevant parties to act with discretion. China sees a missile defense system as impacting on global strategic stability and as threatening to spark new proliferation efforts. Jiang added that such a move was not helpful towards fostering trust between major powers.

Jiang's remarks came after a weekend conference on Asian security held in Singapore, at which the US and Japan discussed collaboration on a joint missile defense system, said to be protection against North Korea missile attacks.

Jiang said the US decision to set up a missile defense system in Eastern Europe had also caused concern and alarm across from the international community, adding that China viewed both the missile systems in the same light.

In another development, China strongly criticized a statement by a US official linking the Beijing Olympic Games to the 1989 Tiananmen incident.

"The Olympic Games are a great world event, and we are firmly against this interference in China's internal affairs in the name of the Games," said Jiang.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey recently said in a statement that China would face greater scrutiny as the 2008 Olympics rolled around, before he criticized China's actions during the Tiananmen incident in 1989.

Jiang said China had put behind it the political turmoil at the end of the 1980s and that over the past two decades, the country had enjoyed improved social stability and economic growth. Progress has also been made in democracy and legal systems, added Jiang, saying that the Chinese people enjoy freedom and various human rights.

"The Chinese government and people will unswervingly march forward along the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics," Jiang said.

Motivated by its own political aims, the United States has been groundlessly criticizing and attacking China year after year, severely harming international relations and flouting China's internal affairs.

"China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes this," she said, adding "we demand the United States halt these wrongdoings and pay more attention to its own internal and international serious infringements on human rights.”

Turning to upcoming state visits, Jiang announced that at the invitation of Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, Ramdien Sardjoe, vice-president of Surinam, would soon pay an official visit to China.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2007)