A Tibetan monk set himself alight in northwest China's Qinghai Province Wednesday, but he survived due to a timely rescue by security guards, local authorities said.

Jamyang Palden, a monk from the Rongwo Monastery in Tongren County in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Huangnan, walked out of the temple at 10:42 a.m., dressed in a gasoline-soaked cassock, a county government spokesman said.

The monk then used a lighter to set fire to himself.

Security guards on duty nearby rushed to put out the blaze and sent him to the Huangnan People's Hospital, said the spokesman.

But some monks and local residents went to the hospital at noon and forcibly took Jamyang Palden away from the hospital, according to the spokesman.

Local authorities are talking with the monk's relatives, hoping to send Jamyang Palden to a hospital in the provincial capital of Xining for better treatment, he added.

Rongwo Monastery is the second-largest temple of Tibetan Buddhism in Qinghai.

Also on Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao told reporters that China is opposed to radical moves taken by Tibetan monks, such as self-immolation, to undermine social harmony.

"The young Tibetans are innocent and we feel deeply distressed by their behavior," Wen told a press conference after the conclusion of the annual parliamentary session.

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