ASSOCIATED PRESS

GENEVA, Switzerland - The United States failed yesterday in its latest effort to have China's human-rights record censured by the United Nations. However, Cuba, Iran and Iraq found themselves under scrutiny.

The United Nations' 53-nation Commission on Human Rights voted 22-18 for a "no action" motion proposed by Beijing to block discussion of a U.S. resolution critical of the situation in China. Twelve nations abstained and one was absent.

Developing countries, many of them African or Asian, rallied to Beijing's cause, as they did in eight previous years. But the United States said that it succeeded in drawing attention to China's record and that the margin of the vote was the narrowest in five years.

"It pokes a hole in the aura of immunity that only China has enjoyed and conveys a sense that all nations have to look to the commission before they confront their own people," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Harold Koh said.

China applauded the U.N. decision. Attempts by the United States to censure it "can lead nowhere but self-isolation and self-defeat," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Sun Yuxi, said in remarks carried by China's official Xinhua news agency.

"The human-rights situation in China is the best ever in the country's history," Sun said.

The vote came after weeks of intense lobbying by both sides. The U.S. text protested increased restrictions on Tibetans and the "harsh crackdown" on political opposition. It noted repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Meanwhile, the U.N. panel censured Cuba for the second consecutive year, voting 21-18 to criticize it for "the continued violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms." Fourteen members abstained.

Cuba accused Washington of being the driving force behind the action. Ambassador Carlos Amat said U.S. officials "once again wielded the strings of their occasional puppets," referring to the Czech Republic and Poland, which proposed the motion.

In another narrow vote, the commission kept Iran under scrutiny for human-rights abuses, even though it accepted that progress had been made. The resolution passed 22-20, with 11 abstentions.

Delegates had less sympathy for neighboring Iraq, which they condemned for its "all-pervasive repression and oppression." No nation supported Baghdad, although 21 abstained.

They agreed without a vote to condemn "the continuing pattern of gross and systematic violations of human rights in Myanmar," also known as Burma, and expressed concern over abuses in Sudan.

With opposition only from Russia, the panel attacked Yugoslavia's repression of the media and the political opposition, arbitrary administration of justice, and discrimination and violence against ethnic minorities.