Spielberg quits Olympics work to protest Chinese inaction
WASHINGTON: The movie director Steven Spielberg has said he is withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to prod President Hu Jintao to do more to try to end Sudan's attacks in the Darfur region.
Spielberg's decision, and the public way he announced it Tuesday, was a blow to China, which has said that its relationship with Sudan should not be linked to the Olympics, which have become a source of national pride.
In a statement sent to the Chinese ambassador and the Beijing Olympic committee on Tuesday, Spielberg said that his "conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual."
"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there," the statement said. "China's economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change."
Responding to Spielberg's action, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington said, "As the Darfur issue is neither an internal issue of China nor is it caused by China, it is completely unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair to link the two as one." Officials in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Spielberg had written to Hu about Darfur twice in the past 10 months, his spokesman said, taking China to task for its "silence" while Sudan blocked the deployment of international peacekeepers and expelled aid workers from the region.
In September, Spielberg also met with China's special envoy to Darfur at the Chinese mission to the United Nations, said Spielberg's spokesman, Andy Spahn.
None of those efforts yielded the results Spielberg wanted, Spahn said. In the meantime, Spielberg had come under increasing pressure from activists working on Darfur, including a campaign by the actress Mia Farrow, to drop his association with the Beijing Olympics.
After receiving word that Spielberg had done just that, Farrow was jubilant.
"His voice and all of the moral authority it gives, used this way, brings a shred of hope to Darfur, and God knows, rations of hope are meager at this time," said Farrow, a good-will ambassador for Unicef who helped start a campaign last year to label the games in Beijing the "Genocide Olympics."
The actor Don Cheadle, a co-founder of Not On Our Watch, a Darfur advocacy group, said he hoped that Spielberg's actions would force China to rethink its position. "One guy like Steven in a position like that is like 100 other guys," he said. "Those are the kinds of moves, that if they catch fire, and other people think of boycotting, or refraining, the cumulative effect could be something that potentially could change the calculation of that government."
David M. Halbfinger contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
Yang Chunlin, a Chinese human rights advocate, will stand trial for subversion after he called for human rights instead of the Beijing Olympic Games, Reuters reported from Beijing.
Yang, an unemployed factory worker from Jiamusi city in China's far northeast, in past years wrote petitions, denounced government corruption and urged democratic reform of the one-party state.
Last year, he helped organize villagers to sign a petition demanding return of disputed land.
Yang boldly declared, "We don't want the Olympics, we want human rights."
Steven Spielberg in 1999.
Beijing National Stadium, where the opening ceremonies will take place.
On Wednesday, United States film director Steven Spielberg withdrew from his position as artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. "Conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual," he said.

"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there," Spielberg's statement said. "China's economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change."

China immediately expressed regret over his decision and suggested that "ulterior motives" may be at play. "It is understandable if some people do not understand the Chinese government policy on Darfur, but I am afraid that some people may have ulterior motives, and this we cannot accept. ... China is also concerned about the humanitarian situation in Darfur. But empty rhetoric will not help. We hope that relevant people will be more pragmatic," said Liu Jianchao, the Deputy-Director General of the Information Department in China's foreign ministry.

Following Spielberg's withdrawal, other organizations called for boycott of the Games. However, United Kingdom Minister for the Olympics Tessa Jowell rejected such calls. "The world has known for the last seven years that Beijing would host the Olympics," Jowell told ''The Times''. "Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy, but that did not stop the International Olympic Committee awarding them the games. A call for a boycott doesn't serve any purpose and it would be a great pity. This doesn't mean, however, we should be distracted from the urgency of Darfur."

"China is also concerned about the humanitarian issues there, but we have been playing a positive and constructive role in promoting peace in Darfur," Liu said, adding that China is working with the United Nations to provide aid and resolve the crisis.

Critics of China contend that China supports the Islamic regime in Sudan because it buys two-thirds of the country's oil exports and also sells it weapons. Further, China has been defending the government in Khartoum in the United Nations Security Council. Since 2003, fighting between government-backed militia and rebels in Darfur has led to the death of more than 200,000 people and displaced some 2.5 million others.

Meanwhile, United States President George W. Bush confirmed that he still plans to attend the Games in Beijing. "I view the Olympics as a sporting event. On the other hand, I have a different platform to Steven Spielberg, so I get to talk to Hu Jintao President of China and I do remind him he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur."

Bush followed this by saying: "I’m not going to use the Olympics as an opportunity to express my opinions to the Chinese people in a public way because I do it all the time with the president."