BEIJING, Aug 19 (AFP) - UN rights chief Mary Robinson on Monday urged China to embrace political reform and warned Beijing that its human rights record remained a "deep concern".

The recent jailing of workers' leaders, increasing repression of ethnic Muslim Uighurs and the heightened use of the death penalty were particularly worrisome to Robinson, who ends her five-year term with the UN next month.

She has repeatedly told Beijing of her concerns, and used her seventh and last official visit to the country to offer a typically blunt final assessment.

"The greatest need, perhaps, at the moment is political and social reforms that address some of the underlying problems that have given rise to labor unrest, etc," Robinson told reporters in Beijing on the first full day of a three-day trip.

In her time with the UN Robinson said she had been left feeling China was serious about legal reform and strengthening the rule of law.

But she said "there is obviously a long way to go, and in the meantime the actual reality of human rights continues to be worrying."

Concerns included the jailing of workers' leaders following major protests which gripped the country's industrial northeast earlier this year and repression of the banned Falungong spiritual group.

"I would worry about the response to labor unrest, the continuing treatment of Falungong members, the restrictions on the use of the Internet and the attitude towards crime, particularly the 'Strike Hard' approach," said the former Irish president.

Strike Hard is a tough anti-crime campaign launched last year which rights groups have condemned as leading to a massive increase in executions.

"That is causing grave concern and gives rise to more use of the death penalty and that worries me greatly," Robinson said.

Robinson also noted that China's treatment of its ethnic Muslim Uighurs is "worsening" since September 11, saying the climate for Uighurs was now "very harsh."

And while there had been some changes to the "reeducation through labor" system, where citizens can be held for up to three years without trial, Robinson said, it remained "a cause of great concern" that people could be detained without due process.

She said the growing problems China faces make it "all the more necessary" to embrace political reform.

Instead she said authorities are clamping down on freedom of expression and putting further restrictions on Internet use, matters she discussed with Chinese officials.

Apart from the labor leaders, Robinson said she raised a number of other individual cases with officials, including that of Xu Wenli, founder of the China Democracy Party who is serving a 13-year prison sentence amid reports of serious ill-health.

Also raised were the cases of Tohti Tunyaz, a Uighur historian jailed since 1998 for carrying out research on Uighur history, and Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, reportedly jailed just for sending newspaper articles to her husband in the United States.

Earlier, during a UN-China workshop for judges and lawyers, Robinson said Beijing had demonstrated a willingness to improve legal procedures in recent years.

Nonetheless, "in many respects, Chinese law and practice still falls short of international human rights standards" she said in a speech.

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