Chinese President Mr Jiang Zemin has delivered a veiled rebuff to UN rights commissioner Mrs Mary Robinson.
After Mrs Robinson warned China it should not use the anti-terror campaign as an excuse for repression, Mr Jiang told her terrorism was itself an abuse of human rights.
Mr Jiang made the comments during talks with Mr Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the second day of her visit to Beijing, the state Xinhua news agency said.
"Terrorism is a grave threat to international peace and security and is also a rampant infringement of human rights," Xinhua quoted Mr Jiang as saying.
Ms Robinson, on her sixth visit to China, issued no statement after the talks but was due to hold a press conference later today.
After her arrival in Beijing yesterday, Ms Robinson spoke of "a worrying trend in a number of countries to use the excuse of combating terrorism to clamp down on freedom of expression and legitimate dissent which is not violent".
Mrs Robinson said she was "worried specifically about the Uighur population in Xinjiang". Some Muslim ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang have waged a violent campaign over a number of years for their region to become an independent nation called East Turkestan.
China has said its fight against such separatists in the region, which borders Afghanistan, is part of the global anti-terror campaign and should be supported by the international community.
AFP