London, July 28 : Hollywood's most visible film director, Steven Spielberg, is considering resigning his position as artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing unless China does more to distance itself from the genocide in Darfur.

Spielberg has been working for several months to help put together the opening ceremony for the Games, which are widely seen as a sort of coming-out party for China's emergence as a world power, reports The Independent.

Speilberg is under pressure from Darfur activists, who have accused him of cosying up to China, a country most directly involved in trade with Sudan.

Spielberg's spokesman was quoted as saying that the director intended to continue applying pressure on China to change its policies, and is ruling nothing out - including withdrawal from his unpaid position as artistic adviser.

China's special envoy on Darfur told the official China Daily newspaper yesterday that there was no point imposing United Nations peacekeepers on an unwilling government in Khartoum because coercion "will lead us nowhere.

There was no immediate response to this from the Spielberg camp.

Spielberg has already written a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao, urging him to change his Government's position on Sudan.

He has also donated about one million dollars to aid groups working in Darfur to protect the predominantly non-Arab civilian population, which has become prey to pro-government Arab militias. nternational experts say somewhere from 200,000 to 500,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and more than two million displaced.

Spielberg is one of a clutch of Hollywood celebrities who are deeply concerned about the genocide. Actor George Clooney has been perhaps the most active, travelling to the region with his journalist father and addressing the UN General Assembly.

Clooney also recruited his co-stars on Ocean's Thirteen - Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle and Matt Damon - as well as the film's producer, Jerry Weintraub, to help raise five million dollars for aid agencies in Darfur. hey are setting up an anti-genocide foundation, Not On Our Watch.

Actress Mia Farrow believes Spielberg is in danger of becoming a modern-day Leni Riefenstahl - a reference to the brilliant Nazi-era director who acted as Hitler's chief celluloid propagandist.