Senate Presses on Darfur as China Fumes Over 'Evil' House Vote

A bipartisan group of senators is pressing China to help implement a truce in Sudan's Darfur region during the upcoming Olympic Games. "As China works to clear the air in Beijing, it must also use its time in the spotlight to push for an end to violence in Darfur and Central Africa," Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a Democrat, said.

The new Senate resolution came on the heels of the House's passage of a resolution sharply critical of China's human rights record. The measure, linking press, labor, and religious freedom issues to China's hosting of the Olympics, passed Wednesday on a 419-to-1 vote.

"This action itself is a blasphemy to the Olympics and runs counter to the aspiration of people of all countries including the U.S.," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said.

"The passing of the resolution at this time has fully exposed the attempt of the very few anti-China U.S. lawmakers to politicize the Olympics and their evil intention to disrupt and sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games," an unnamed foreign affairs official with China's legislature, the National People's Congress, told a state-run newspaper, China Daily.