Pro-Tibetan protesters and police clashed outside the Chinese embassy in Yarralumla yesterday on the 50th anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.

ACT Policing arrested four men who broke through a cordoned protest area and ran towards police deployed outside the embassy.

Earlier, between 200 and 300 people took part in a peaceful pro-Tibet rally outside Parliament House where they were addressed by members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet, including Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, Independent senator Nick Xenophon, Labor backbencher Michael Danby, and Liberal MP Peter Slipper.

Senator Brown urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to support Tibet's independence from China.

''Australian people support freedom for Tibet,'' he said.

''What we need is political leaders, including Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull on this hill, who have got the gumption to reflect that Australian call to the Chinese dictators to give Tibet back its freedom, its peace and its rights.''

Mr Danby, who received a letter from the Chinese ambassador, Zhang Junsai, strongly urging him not to attend the rally, expressed his view that Tibet should be given autonomy similar to Hong Kong and Macau. He said Mr Zhang's letter lacked diplomatic finesse.

''No self-respecting MP would listen to a letter like this and not turn up to some political event because an ambassador of another country told him,'' Mr Danby said.

Mr Smith defended Mr Danby's position. ''What a diplomat is not entitled to do is to somehow seek to direct an elected official or an elected Member of Parliament in how he or she might conduct himself or herself,'' he said.

''For myself, I think Mr Danby made the right decision and I support him fully.''

An ACT Policing spokeswoman said the pro-Tibet protest was calm.

The arrested men were taken to the city watch-house for breaching the peace. They were released a short time later and will not face charges.

A spokesman for Australia's Tibetan community, Tsewang Thupten, told the rally outside Parliament House the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising was a day ''to celebrate the strength of the Tibetan people and their perseverance, and to commit ourselves to continuing the struggle''.

On the eve of the anniversary, China's President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao told Tibetan delegates at the Chinese National People's Congress in Beijing that China's unity needed to be protected from separatist forces.

Last year, protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa to mark the anniversary led to deadly anti-Chinese riots.

Thousands of Chinese troops and paramilitary police are reported to have been deployed in Tibetan-cities during this year's anniversary period.