May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese climbers carried the Beijing Olympic torch to the summit of Mount Everest using a route through Tibet, the highlight of the flame's relay in China before the Games begin in August.

State television broadcast live the final stage of the ascent by a 12-member team on the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak, referred to in China as Mount Qomolangma. The climbers, who included ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese, brought high- altitude torches to the summit shortly after 9 a.m. local time.

``Long live Beijing!'' shouted one climber. ``Beijing welcomes you,'' shouted another, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The team held the red Chinese flag, the Beijing Olympics flag and the five-ring Olympic pennant in temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), it said.

The Olympic torch relay became a focal point for anti-China protests from Paris to San Francisco as demonstrators highlighted China's human rights record and its crackdown in Tibet after pro-independence riots in March.

State media stressed the Tibetan and Han Chinese ethnicity of the torchbearers before the climb. Free Tibet, an international group seeking self-rule for the region, accuses the government in Beijing of flooding the Himalayan territory with Han Chinese immigrants in an act of ``demographic aggression'' designed to destroy local culture.

China's Communist Party took control of Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama, the Himalayan region's spiritual leader, fled to India after a failed revolt in 1959.

Hans Attacked

The Chinese administration in Tibet said last year 92 percent of Tibet's 2.8 million permanent residents are ethnic Tibetans and 8 percent are Han or other minorities. Han Chinese are the largest of China's 50-plus ethnic groups, comprising more than 90 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people.

China accused supporters of the Dalai Lama of organizing the worst unrest in 20 years in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and nearby provinces in March to try to sabotage the Beijing Games. It says 18 civilians and one police officer died in riots that targeted ethnic Hans in Lhasa on March 14.

Tibet's government-in-exile, based in Dharamshala, northern India, said last week that 203 people have been killed since protests against Chinese rule erupted on March 10.

China asked Nepal to boost security to prevent anti-Chinese protests on the Nepalese side of Everest. The Nepal-Tibet border cuts across the summit of the world's tallest peak.

Mountain Opened

Nepalese police were deployed at base camp and Camp 2, a lower stop, and authorized to use force to prevent disruptions to the torchbearers.

The government in Kathmandu today lifted a weeklong ban on climbing the Nepalese side of Everest, Agence France-Presse said.

``Mountaineers will be allowed to move toward the summit'' from tomorrow, AFP cited Prem Rai, spokesman for Nepal's Tourism Ministry, as saying. Security forces will remain on the mountain and will search expedition teams in an effort to prevent pro- Tibet protests, he said.

Tibetan exiles living in Nepal staged protests in front of the United Nations office and the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu before the ascent. China earlier this week blamed international institutions for organizing the protests, saying its embassy was damaged in the demonstrations.

``The Olympic flame's burning on the top of Everest signals the complete success of the Everest torch relay,'' Vice President Xi Jinping said in a letter congratulating the climbing team, according to the Chinese-language version of Xinhua. The flame carried to the summit of Everest will be reunited with the main Olympic torch later in the relay, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 8, 2008 03:15 EDT