Beijing ? China vowed Saturday to ramp up a campaign requiring Tibetan Buddhist monks to denounce the Dalai Lama and declare their loyalty to Beijing.

But resentment over “patriotic education” has ignited protests that have left eight people dead in recent days in a southwestern province and could fuel future unrest despite a massive security presence aimed at quelling the demonstrations.

The Tibet Daily newspaper reported Saturday that the government pledged to “strengthen patriotic education” especially among young monks to help them “become patriotic, religion-loving and law-abiding.”

“We should strengthen patriotic education so as to guide the masses of monks to continuously display the patriotic tradition and uphold the banner of patriotism,” the paper quoted Hao Peng, Tibet’s deputy Communist Party chief, as saying.

China has been using the much-reviled practice of enforcing patriotism education for more than a decade in an attempt to exert greater control over religion. The practice requires monks to do ritual denunciations of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and accept the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, the second-highest ranking Buddhist leader.

The campaign had exacerbated tensions in Tibet in the months before anti-government demonstrations exploded in mid-March in the region’s capital, Lhasa, and neighboring provinces.

The protests are the longest and most sustained challenge to China’s 57-year rule in the Himalayan region. China’s subsequent crackdown has drawn international scrutiny and criticism in the run-up to this summer’s Olympic Games.

Chinese authorities say 22 people died in anti-Beijing riots that broke out March 14 in Lhasa. The Tibetan government-in-exile says up to 140 were killed in the protests and ensuing crackdown.

China imposed a military clampdown on a large swath of the western part of the country in an effort to rein in the anti-government demonstrations. But continuing unrest continued, partly ignited by the compulsory patriotic education.