With prominent Chinese dissident Harry Wu looking on and flanked by a poster showing the lone Chinese man who in 1989 halted a column of tanks, several lawmakers from across the US political spectrum demanded Beijing halt ``ongoing and egregious human rights abuses''.

The group urged passage of identical non-binding Senate and House resolutions condemning the June 4, 1989, massacre and pressing Beijing to order a new investigation and to re-evaluate its official verdict. ``I do not want human rights in China and the memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre to be lost'' among a host of other thorny Sino-US issues, said Republican Senator Tim Hutchinson, a principal backer of the Bill. The measure denounces Chinese human rights abuses and expresses sympathy for relatives of the hundreds andpossibly thousands killed when Chinese forces swept into Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, ending weeks of pro-democracy protests.

It also calls on China to end human rights abuses, to free all prisoners of conscience, including those who took part in May and June 1989 pro-democracy protests, and to compensate families of the victims. And China must ratify and implement the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which it signed on October 5, 1998, according to the measure.

Charges that Beijing stole US nuclear secrets and made improper donations to US political campaigns, NATO's mistaken bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade and ensuing protests that severely damaged the US embassy in Beijing have further frayed already strained Sino-US relations. But Democratic Senator Russell Feingold feels: ``This is the right time to turn up the heat, we cannot let the human rights issue take a backstage.''Several lawmakers sharply criticised President Bill Clinton's policy of engagement, which ``hasdemonstrably failed'' to improve China's human rights record, according to Hutchinson. He added that China is not a strategic ally and that Washington must strengthen ties with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

``We've seen almost no progress,'' agreed Republican Representative Frank Wolf, noting that Chinese could violently protest against NATO's bombing of the Belgrade embassy, but not peacefully demonstrate against Yugoslavia's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo or abuses in China.

``Those who have embraced engagement have embraced the belief that change (in China) will be incremental, that you can tame the tiger,'' Hutchinson later told AFP.