BEIJING - CHINESE official media have sought to temper nationalist calls to boycott foreign businesses accused of backing Tibetan independence, urging angry citizens to focus on economic development.

Chinese Internet sites have been awash with calls to stop buying French goods and stop shopping at Carrefour stores after Tibet protesters in Paris upset the Beijing Olympics torch relay.

Following prominent local news reports, Chinese officials and citizens have also vented outrage at a commentator on CNN television who spoke of Chinese 'goons' and 'junk' products.

But it balanced the praise with a warning not to challenge the government's policies of opening to foreign investment.

'Patriotic zeal must enter onto a rational track and must be transformed into concrete actions to do one's own work well,' said the commentary widely distributed in the Chinese media.

'Thirty years of reform and opening up have created a China miracle...But we must be crystal clear that for China that has endured so much, the future road will not be all smooth-going.'

Most Chinese people are intensely proud about the Beijing Olympic Games in August, and the government has waged a propaganda war against the exiled Dalai Lama, whom it accuses of masterminding riots last month in Tibet's regional capital Lhasa and across other Tibetan areas.

Beijing says the Tibetan Buddhist leader sought to upstage Olympics preparations and a multi-national torch relay. The Dalai Lama has rejected the allegations, speaking out against the violence and backing the Beijing Olympics.

Chinese official and public anger has far from subsided.

In a separate commentary, Xinhua called the Tibet protests that dogged the Olympic torch relay in Britain, France and the United States a 'conspiracy' to humiliate the Games host.

'The goal was to cause trouble for China, damage its image and hinder its peaceful rise.'

Volatile
But the official call to channel patriotism into hard work echoes handling of earlier upsurges of nationalism when officials sought to rein in volatile public anger that could turn against the government.

In 1999, after Nato mistakenly bombed Beijing's Embassy in Belgrade during the war against Serbia and killed three Chinese nationals, angry students and citizens surrounded and stoned the US embassy in Beijing and attacked US consulates.

Hu Jintao, then Chinese vice president and now president, took the lead in cooling those protests, demanding 'social stability' and urging people to focus on development.

This time French companies are the target, with activists calling for a boycott of retailer Carrefour, accusing it of helping fund the Dalai Lama.

Some angry citizens have protested in front of Carrefour stores in Chinese cities. An opinion poll in 10 Chinese cities found 66 per cent of respondents supported the Carrefour boycott, according to Xinhua.

Only 7 per cent said outright that they would not.

But past nationalist boycott campaigns against US and Japanese companies have fizzled with little effect on sales.

A Xinhua report on Friday also urged people to abandon boycotts in favour of 'more sensible, practical and mature' ways of expressing 'patriotic emotions'.

'Rashly waving a club doesn't help attract foreign businesses or employment for ordinary Chinese,' the report cited a Beijing academic as saying.