By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday that a visit by China's president to Sudan, when he offered a loan to build a presidential palace, sent "mixed signals" about Beijing's intent to press Khartoum over Darfur. The United States has long been critical of China for not using its economic muscle to get Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to accept U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, and Washington had hoped President Hu Jintao would use a trip to Khartoum last week to press the issue. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described Hu's visit to Sudan as a "mixed bag". The Chinese president raised the issue of Darfur with Bashir but he also signed several economic deals with Sudan, including an interest-free loan of 100 million yuan ($12.9 million) for Sudan to build a new presidential palace. He also wrote off up to $70 million in Sudanese debts to China. "There have been some mixed signals, obviously. On the one hand it is very positive that President Hu raised these issues but on the other hand there are other signals -- Chinese investment and building a new presidential palace," said McCormack. Sudan's Islamic government, under U.S. sanctions, has relied on China to expand oil production and build infrastructure like dams and roads. "China obviously has its own reasons for doing that but we are going to continue working closely with the Chinese as well as others to bring that diplomatic pressure on the Sudanese to allow in that AU-UN hybrid force," said McCormack. A 7,500-strong African Union peacekeeping mission has struggled to maintain a ceasefire in Darfur. Khartoum rejected a U.N. takeover of the force and has instead given loose approval for a U.N.-AU hybrid force. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met U.S. actor Don Cheadle, an activist on Darfur, to discuss what was happening there. McCormack declined to provide any details of Rice's meeting with the actor, whose roles include one in a film about the Rwandan genocide, except to say the two had a good discussion. Cheadle and other personalities have been putting pressure on the Bush administration to do more to stop the carnage in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in the past four years and about 2.5 million driven from their homes. The Save Darfur Coalition, one of the most vocal advocacy groups for Darfur, wrote to President George W. Bush on Monday, urging him to take specific actions to help what the president himself calls genocide. "It's not an exaggeration to fear that the degradation of the humanitarian situation in Darfur may soon result in a catastrophe dwarfing all that has gone before," said Save Darfur Coalition executive director David Rubenstein. Rubenstein told Bush he was disappointed by the "lack of concerted and sustained action" to end the tragedy. "It is time for effective American leadership to end this genocide now," he added. ($1=7.76 yuan)
