BY JOHN DONNELLY
Mercury News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- He's only 9, but he stands between the Chinese government and the State Department.

After two days of ``candid'' discussions on human rights in China and the United States, a U.S. official said Wednesday that he had asked to visit the 11th Panchen Lama in Tibet, who has been detained by Chinese authorities since he was 6.

China maintains the boy is ``fine,'' but Assistant Secretary of State Harold Koh would like to see with his own eyes. While Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, made a similar request last year, Koh is the first U.S. official to ask for a visit.

The U.S.-Chinese talks in Washington this week covered several sensitive issues, including concern about recent arrests, trials and sentencing of pro-democracy activists in China. China raised questions about the disproportionate number of black Americans in U.S. prisons.

Both sides may continue talking later in the year in Beijing -- as long as the Chinese address some of the U.S. concerns, Koh said.

A main sticking point is the young Panchen Lama, Tibet's second-most-important religious figure.

``This boy is extremely important,'' said Jeffrey Hopkins, a University of Virginia professor of Tibetan and Buddhist studies and a close friend of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. ``He personifies the greater problem of an outside force asserting its will over the indigenous population of Tibet.''

For six years, a committee of abbots searched for the child considered the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, the Tibetan Earth-Snake year. They carried out several divinations and investigated about 30 candidates. Finally, in 1995, the committee and then the Dalai Lama settled on Tibetan-born Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and bestowed upon him the formal title of ``All-knowing.''

A formal relationship dating from the 15th century has developed between the two lamas, in which the Dalai Lama recognizes the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and vice versa. Thus, the current Panchen Lama has the authority to recognize a successor of the current Dalai Lama upon his death.

Four days after the divination of the Panchen Lama in 1995, Chinese officials arrested him and his family. Then they named a Panchen Lama of their own. No further word has come from the government on the original Panchen Lama, although Tibetan exiles say there's a rumor that the boy and his family are being held at the former mayor's compound in Beijing.

After the Chinese told Koh that the 9-year-old was fine, one Chinese official added, ``We assume you trust us on this point,'' Koh said.

When Koh pressed them to see the Panchen Lama, he told the Chinese: ``Don't you trust me?''

Koh's counterpart, Wang Guang Ya, China's assistant foreign minister, said Wednesday that the meeting was highly unlikely. The reason: ``The family does not wish to be disturbed.''

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Last updated: 19-Jan-99