China "regrets" Spielberg's Darfur decision

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"We express regret," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference. "All preparation work for the Beijing Olympics is proceeding smoothly. The Chinese people are willing to work with artists from around the world with wisdom and talent and the Olympic Games will be a success."

The Hollywood director said he pulled out of his role as an artistic adviser because China was doing too little to help halt the bloodshed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where Khartoum-linked militia have battled rebel groups.

Several Nobel Peace laureates also wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao urging he change policy towards Sudan, where China has big oil investments. Beijing has often said it is working for peace in Darfur.

China's state media hit back, accusing Western countries of abusing the Olympics to pressure Beijing and saying the boycotts "disgusted" Chinese people.

"Western exploitation of the Olympics to pressure China immediately provoked much disgust among ordinary Chinese people," said the Global Times, a current affairs tabloid run by the Communist Party's People's Daily.

"The vast majority of Chinese people have expressed bafflement and outrage at the Western pressure. In their view, it's absolutely absurd to place the Darfur issue, so many thousands of miles away, on the head of China."

"NOT IN OLYMPIC SPIRIT"

Liu said Chinese companies operating in Sudan were playing a constructive role, making donations to help reconstruction and engaging in development work such as digging wells.

Beijing's Olympic organising committee said the government was making "unremitting efforts" to resolve the Darfur crisis.

"Linking the Darfur issue to the Olympic Games will not help to resolve this issue and is not in line with the Olympic spirit that separates sports from politics," the committee said in a statement.

The Global Times said even Chinese citizens who complain about losing homes to Games buildings opposed Western pressure.

Jin Canrong, an international relations expert at the People's University of China in Beijing, told the paper that the renewed criticism over Darfur showed Western powers were exploiting their "media hegemony" to whip up prejudice.

"Whoever uses this humanitarian issue to criticise China and put pressure on China gains something of a halo," Jin told the paper. "The West has seized on China's tremendous emphasis on the Olympic Games to criticise China."

Some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in more than four years of conflict in Darfur, according to estimates by international experts. Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000.

"China is also concerned about the humanitarian situation there and China has played an active role in pushing forward the peace process," Liu said.

"Holding up banners and shouting slogans will not solve the problem. What we need are concrete actions."

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley, Nick Mulvenney and Guo Shipeng, writing by Lindsay Beck; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jeremy Laurence)