Ahead of President Jiang Zemin's October 24-25 visit to Texas and a meeting with George Bush, China has taken steps to mute some of the human rights heat it gets over Tibet.

Besides improving China's relationship with the US in general, Jiang hopes to avoid a reoccurrence of the loud and embarrassing protests that have disrupted his previous visits to the West.

In past months China has released seven high profile political prisoners from Tibetan jails and invited journalists and European diplomats to visit Tibet. In a relatively unusual move, China also allowed a delegation from the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Government in Exile to visit Beijing and Tibet for meetings with the Communist Party leadership.

China typically releases a few political prisoners ahead of state visits. The first of the seven released this year was Ngawang Choephel, an ethnomusicologist who was arrested in 1997 while recording traditional music in Tibet. In July, Tanak Jigme Sangpo, believed to be China's longest-held political prisoner, was released nine years early. Earlier this year, four "singing nuns," a group of women punished for recording pro-independence songs in prison, were freed, as well. Ngawng Sangdrol, a nun who was born in 1977 had been imprisoned since 1992 for "counterrevolutionary incitement and propaganda" and had her sentence extended three times for "counterrevolutionary crimes in prison." Before her parole in mid-October she had been slated to remain in prison until 2011.

China's official figures indicate 100 more Tibetan political prisoners are to remain incarcerated for "endangering state security."

One prisoner who remains unaccounted for, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was taken by Chinese authorities in 1995 when he was six years old, shortly after he was recognized by the Tibetan religious authorities as the 11th Panchen Lama. China insists that he is well, but keeps him under wraps and has replaced him with their own rival Panchen Lama, who Tibetans refuse to recognize. The imprisoned Panchen Lama was the subject of a joint US congressional resolution passed last June calling on China to release him. That resolution also encouraged China to enter negotiations with the Dalai Lama's exiled government over the status of Tibet.

In September, a delegation from the exiled government visited China and Tibet for the first time in a decade, after contacts were broken off in 1993. The Chinese have downplayed the September sojourn, saying the delegation of expatriate Tibetans were visiting "in a private capacity." The governor of Tibet denied knowing they were representatives of the Dalai Lama when he met with them. The Chinese hate and fear the exiled Tibetan leader's relationship with Tibetans so much that even his photograph is banned in China.

Nevertheless, the Tibetan government-in-exile and human rights groups see the reopened dialogue as a sign that China is inching toward negotiating a settlement to the Tibetan situation. The Dalai Lama's government has told the Kashag, the exiled legislature, that they are dedicating the next year to encouraging this dialogue. As part of this encouragement they have, in a statement by Samdhong Rinpoche posted on the government's official website, called on Tibet's supporters "to refrain from public actions like rallies and demonstrations during President Jiang's visit to the United States."

China's slight relaxation reflects in part its increasing confidence in its hold over Tibet. Overt acts of rebellion have decreased in the last few years and the economy is improving. Also entering the equation is the improved relationship between the US and India, China's main rival in South Asia, and the host country for the Tibetan exiled government.

Journalists who have recently visited Tibet were treated to orchestrated events designed to underscore the peace and religious freedom in the country. Nevertheless, reports of conditions in the monasteries are not much different than in times past. Communist Party cadres still run the monasteries and "patriotic education" classes, where Tibetan history is revised to justify China's occupation, and are still a much resented fixture of life. And the Chinese leadership continues to refer to the Dalai Lama as a "criminal" and insist that he recognize that "Tibet is an inalienable part of China" as a precondition for any dialogue.