BEIJING — China's Foreign Ministry lashed out at a U.S. government report that criticized Beijing's human rights record and urged a visit by a UN investigator of torture. Those views were based on "arrogance and prejudices," the ministry said.

The annual report of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China "distorted facts and attacked China by using the issues of human rights," spokesman Kong Quan was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

"This only shows the arrogance and prejudices of the drafter of the report," Kong said, according to the Xinhua report issued late Saturday.

The commission's report criticized Chinese restrictions on political and religious expression, while applauding recent developments in legal reform that it said could foster greater freedoms in future.

"Chinese citizens are using existing legal mechanisms to challenge state action in increasing numbers and are exhibiting signs of greater empowerment in confronting the state in some areas," said the report.

It also called on China to honor what it called "significant and far-reaching commitments on human rights matters" made during a December 2002 U.S.-China human rights dialogue. It said those commitments included the release of some detainees and the unconditional invitations to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

The report cited official Chinese statistics saying that between 1998 and 2000, more than 300,000 Chinese were detained for periods longer than permitted under Chinese law.

China's Communist Party permits no challenges to its monopoly on political power and the government imprisons people who attempt to organize opposition parties, worker's groups, or religious meetings independently of state-controlled groups. Loosely defined state security laws are used to prosecute people who criticize the government or demand greater freedoms.

Kong's statement didn't address specific demands or accusations within the report. But he accused the United States of using its own standards of human rights to humiliate and repress China while ignoring the country's economic and social achievements, a view long-held by the government and many ordinary Chinese.

"China today is full of vitality, advancing full steam ahead. It is a basic fact obvious to all that China's human rights condition and legal system are now in the best period for continued development," Kong was quoted as saying.