The Chinese government and a scholar on Thursday refuted Human Rights Watch's criticism on China's human rights conditions as biased and untrue.

"China's human rights conditions are making progress, and the Human Rights Watch should view the progress with an unbiased and just attitude," said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao.

He said the organization has always stuck to a biased view about China and its report has always been harboring political purposes and not reflecting the true conditions.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based group, released its annual report on Thursday which criticized a handful of countries -- including China -- for poor rights records.

Dong Yunhu, secretary general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said the report is "completely groundless" and its authors have a "Cold War mentality."

"This group always turns a blind eye to China's progress in human rights protection, no matter how remarkable it is," Dong said, saying that the group has a cold war mentality when it comes to China, which leads to serious bias in its reports.

The New York-based group blasted China for rights abuse in a wide range of fields, including the country's management of the internet, press, and aid groups.

"The report is politically inspired," Dong said. "In reality, China has made huge progress in human rights protection in the past year."

"Human rights protection" has been included in the guidelines for the five-year national development plan (2006-2010) and "the development of individual political rights" has been placed at the top of the country's development goals for the next five years, Dong said.

He said China has scrapped centuries-old agricultural taxes, promised to provide free nine-year education, and tightened control over the use of the death penalty.

Dong also defended the government's supervision of the internet, saying the measure is aimed to facilitate citizens rights of expression, and not to suffocate freedom of speech.

A domestic Internet survey report published Wednesday says that by the end of 2006, the number of bloggers in China had reached 20.8 million, of whom 3.15 million are active authors. Many public figures as well as ordinary people now use web blogs as a convenient way to express their thoughts.

"Different country has different condition in human rights. China is willing to exchange views with other countries in this regard on the basis of mutual respect and equality," Liu Jianchao said.