[WASHINGTON, Feb. 25] -- Using its toughest language since the pro-Democracy movement was crushed by Beijing more than a decade ago, the United States sharply criticized China today for what it called a marked deterioration in human rights.

The annual country reports on human rights released by the State Department dealt with more than 100 countries, but much of the focus was on China, with which the Clinton administration relations have grown even more tense this week, and on Russia, which the administration has criticized for its conduct of the war in Chechnya.

On virtually every count, from crackdowns against organized dissent, to conditions in prisons, the report on China was quite harsh.

"The government's poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the Government intensified efforts to suppress dissent, particularly organized dissent," the report said.

After noting Beijing's actions against the Falun Gong and the China Democracy Party last year, the report said: "The government continued to commit widespread and well documented human rights abuses in violation of internationally accepted norms. These abuses stemmed from the authorities' extremely limited tolerance of public dissent aimed at the government, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms."

The United States's relationship with China has been marked by ambivalence and more than a little politics. While criticizing China on human rights grounds, the administration is continuing, even intensifying, its lobbying for China's membership to the World Trade Organization. And mainland China's relations with Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade, are once again tinder for international diplomatic flareups.

Whatever the problems with China, President Clinton asserted in a speech on Thursday in Philadelphia, "the problems will be worse if we don't bring China into the W.T.O." Assuming that the State Department's criticism of China is well-documented and sincere, it also affords political cover for the administration, enabling it to tell its critics in Congress and elsewhere that the United States is being tough on China.

The report also contained strong criticism of Russia for its attacks on separatists in Chechnya, including air strikes and shelling of cities inhabitated by civilians. "These attacks, which in turn led to house-to-house fighting in Grozny, led to the deaths of numerous civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more," the report said.

The State Department cited North Korea, Iraq, Syria and Cuba as other human rights transgressors.

North Korea's government, the report said, "regards almost any independent activity" as a crime against the state.

Iraq, it said, crushes its political opponents through widespread fear backed up by summary executions.

Syria, it said, uses government powers "to quash all organized political opposition," while the government of Fidel Castro continues to suppress opposition and criticism in Cuba.

There were a few bright spots in the report. Because of elections in Indonesia and Nigeria, two countries with big populations, more people came under democratic rule last year than at any time in the recent past, it said.