Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China’s human rights record worsened last year in areas that included harassment of dissidents and repression of ethnic minorities such as Tibetans, the State Department said today.

Chinese authorities committed killings and torture outside the legal system, coerced confessions of prisoners and used forced labor, the department said in its 2008 report. The government also “increased detention and harassment of dissidents, petitioners, human rights defenders and defense lawyers,” the department said in the study.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said U.S. security is enhanced by rights improvements around the world and she intends to reach out beyond governments to seek gains. The Obama administration is under pressure to find more effective ways to influence governments such as China that it also must work with on issues such as the economic crisis, security and climate changes.

“I’m looking for results,” Clinton told reporters as she introduced the human rights assessment, the first issued on her watch. “I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest numbers of people.”

She didn’t talk specifically about China, a country she visited last week and that objects to such reports, saying they constitute interference in internal affairs.

Criticism of Clinton

Clinton drew criticism from advocacy groups during her Asia tour for saying U.S. expressions of concern over human rights in China won’t preclude cooperation on issues such as the global economic crisis and terrorism. New York-based Human Rights Watch said her remarks “send the wrong message” to China’s communist government.

The U.S. should judge more fairly and objectively and stop issuing reports such as the annual State Department accounting, said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

“The Chinese government has been doing its best to improve its work,” Wang said. “It actually put the human rights protection work on the top of its work agenda.”

Planned Pick

Clinton plans to tap a prominent activist to head the State Department bureau overseeing human rights issues. She intends to name Michael Posner, president of New York-based Human Rights First, as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified.

Posner’s organization works with activists in countries including Guatemala, Russia, Zimbabwe and Indonesia. He drafted and campaigned for a 1992 U.S. law called the Torture Victim Protection Act, designed to give victims of the most serious abuses a remedy in U.S. courts, according to the Human Rights First Web site.

In 1998, Posner led the group’s delegation to a Rome conference where the statute for the International Criminal Court was adopted, according to a short biography on the Web site. The Obama administration has signaled support for the ICC, a tribunal the Bush administration said didn’t offer adequate protections against politically motivated prosecutions.

Posner declined to comment through his assistant, Emily Stanfield. The Senate would have to confirm his nomination for the human rights post.

“The promotion of human rights is an essential piece of our foreign policy,” Clinton said in the preface to the annual rights report. “Not only will we seek to live up to our ideals on American soil, we will pursue greater respect for human rights as we engage other nations and people around the world.”

Egypt Cited

Egypt, a U.S. ally that has been under a state of emergency since 1967, was cited in the report for a “decline in the government’s respect for freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion during the year.”

“In particular, detentions and arrests of Internet bloggers appeared to be linked primarily to their efforts to organize demonstrations through their blogs and participation in street protests or other activism,” according to the report.

In the former Soviet Union, rights violations included allegations of “executions, torture, ethnic attacks and random burning of homes” in Georgia, according to the report. Governments targeted groups and opposition parties in Russia and Azerbaijan, the department said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 25, 2009 18:34 EST