GENEVA, Mar 23, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrived here Thursday after a 12-hour flight from India to deliver a 15-minute speech blasting China for human rights abuses and lobby for a resolution condemning Beijing at the UN Human Rights Commission.

Albright's brief presence at the commission's annual meeting later Thursday, after which she is to rejoin President Bill Clinton on his tour of South Asia, is believed to be the first time a US secretary of state has addressed the body.

In her speech, Albright is expected to note a "sharp deterioration" in Beijing's rights record over the past year.

Areas of concern expected to be raised include: continued repression of political dissent, crackdowns on religious groups, including the Falun Gong spiritual movement, restrictions on freedom of expression and the situation in Tibet.

"Other people could give the speech but I thought in order to really make clear the importance to us (of human rights) that I should make it," Albright told AFP en route to Geneva from New Delhi.

The secretary's address -- which will also highlight abuses in Cuba, Chechnya, Myanmar and Serbia -- comes as US officials have expressed cautious hope that a resolution on China could succeed this year.

Beijing has managed to defeat all such previous resolutions and since 1995 has stymied attempts to get them even debated.

Chinese officials have vowed to smash this year's US-sponsored effort, which Washington announced in January well before its release of a highly critical report on the human rights situation in China.

"They always fight it," Albright said dismissively of China's vehement opposition to the resolution that is expected to be formally introduced to the commission in mid-April.

"They would do better to fight their problems on human rights."

Changes in the composition of the 53-member UN commission, combined with heavy and earlier-than-usual lobbying, have led US officials to believe that this year they may be able to at least defeat the Chinese effort to kill the resolution with a "no-action motion" before it reaches the floor.

"We have the best chance since 1995 to defeat the (Chinese) no-action motion," Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Democracy and Labor Harold Koh told reporters in Washington on Monday.

Success on this front would be a great victory for the Clinton administration which faces a tough battle in Congress for passage of a bill granting China permanent normal trading status (NTR).

Some conservative lawmakers say the bill, part of the package to bring China into the World Trade Organization, panders to Beijing and ignores human rights conditions there.

Clinton, Albright and other US officials maintain that their support of NTR is not inconsistent with the promotion of human rights and have pledged to continue public condemnations of Chinese abuses.

Albright acknowleged her strenuous itinerary this week was in part designed to assuage congressional concerns about the administration's commitment to promoting human rights in China as it pushes for permanent NTR.

"I think that's fair," she said, noting that her 15-hour stay in Geneva backed up previous pledges to lawmakers on the subject.

"When I have been up on the Hill talking about this, I've said that we would not step back on speaking out on human rights. And we're obviously not."

In addition to her remarks, Albright is to meet with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Swiss Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss.

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)