The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, bluntly criticised Beijing yesterday over what she called a deterioration in China's human rights record.
A Chinese spokesman responded just as bluntly, saying a foreigner had no business passing judgment.
Mrs Robinson said she had failed in her mission to sign a pact that would speed China's ratification of key international human rights charters by helping Beijing adjust its own laws.
She said she raised her concerns with the Vice-Premier, Mr Qian Qichen, and senior officials during a two-day visit to Beijing.
"I am concerned about three areas that I have expressed my worries about - the areas of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of association," she said.
"My major concern is that there does seem to have been a deterioration," she said.
But the foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Zhu Bangzao, said Mrs Robinson had no right to comment.
"Only Chinese people have the right to judge whether human rights conditions in China have turned better or worse," Mr Zhu told a regular news briefing.
He said Beijing guaranteed all people freedom of speech, association and religious belief.
"Chinese people are satisfied with the rights they enjoy. This is a fact widely recognised by the international community."
Mrs Robinson's visit came just days after a US State Department report said China's human rights record "deteriorated markedly" in 1999, citing suppression of religion, jailings of dissidents and political purges in Tibet.
China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees basic freedoms of religion, speech and assembly, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Mrs Robinson said Beijing had made progress on ratifying the covenant on economic and social rights by sending it for approval to the National People's Congress, which opens its annual session on Sunday.
But Beijing was dragging its heels on the covenant on civil and political rights, she said.
Mrs Robinson said Chinese officials had pointed out that the US had not yet ratified the covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
She said she aimed to sign the pact on technical co-operation projects with Beijing by the end of the year.
The projects aimed to reduce police powers of detention, phase out a widespread system of reform through labour, under which political dissidents are held for years without trial, and improve China's legal and judicial system.
"The next move that will be necessary is to ensure that the law is compatible with international human rights standards," she said.
"Bad law is tyranny."
Mrs Robinson said she had raised the issue of Falun Gong and individual human rights cases, including the jailing of Mr Xu Wenli, one of the founders of the outlawed China Democracy Party.