TOKYO, Japan -- Actor George Clooney called Saturday for China and other major countries to raise the pressure on Sudan to end the bloodshed in Darfur.

Writing in a special Africa edition of Japan's Asahi Shimbun guest-edited by rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, Clooney said the international community has failed to show resolve on Darfur.

China is Sudan's largest energy partner and last year helped persuade Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir to accept a joint United Nations-Africa Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.

"But almost a year later he is still putting obstacles in the way of their full deployment. China and the rest of us need to turn up the heat," Clooney, a prominent activist on Darfur, wrote.

He also called for action by Japan when it hosts the July 7-9 summit of the Group of Eight top industrial powers. Japan held talks with Beshir when he visited for a major Africa development summit that closed Friday in Yokohama.

"You are in a unique position to hold Khartoum -- and ourselves -- to account," Clooney said of Japan.

"Someday these atrocities will end," Clooney said. "And when it does questions will be asked."

"Questions like: Where was the rest of the world?" he said. "Where were we when it mattered?"

"Then only history will be left to judge us."

Ethnic minority rebels in the parched western region rose up in early 2003 against Sudan's Arab and Muslim-dominated government, sparking a response which the United States has described as an act of genocide.

More than 2.2 million people have fled their homes and up to 300,000 people may have died from war, famine, and disease, according to the United Nations.

Sudan puts the number of deaths from fighting at 10,000.