* China calls for safe return of abducted, missing worker
* Beijing faces expectations it can wield influence to protect citizens
* China has major interests in oil and infrastructure in Sudan
By Chris Buckley
BEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China has sent a team of officials to Sudan to seek the release of 29 Chinese construction workers held by rebels in the border state of South Kordofan and it urged the rebels and government to avoid mis-steps that could endanger the captives.
The Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that officials from the ministry, state-owned assets administration and other agencies had left for Sudan a day earlier to "assist in rescue work".
Their plight has attracted widespread attention and any lives lost could become a more serious headache for Beijing, which faces intense public expectations that it can wield its rising influence to protect nationals abroad.
"The Chinese side calls on all the parties concerned to exercise calm and restraint," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said in the statement announcing the dispatch of the team.
"Ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, and out of humanitarian considerations release them as soon as possible," said Liu, in the statement on the ministry website (www.mfa.gov.cn).
The abduction is the latest incident dramatising Beijing's nettlesome problem with Chinese companies and workers venturing to dangerous territories generally shunned by Western companies.
The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said it took the 29 workers on Saturday for their own safety after a battle with the Sudanese army. Since June, the army has been fighting the SPLM-N in South Kordofan, which borders on the newly independent country of South Sudan.
There was initially hope that some of workers had been released, after Sudan's state news agency said the military freed 14 of them.
But on Monday, Chinese and Sudanese officials denied the report. China said 29 of the attacked workers remained in rebel hands while another 17 had reached safety and one was missing.
PRESSURE ON SUDAN'S GOVERNMENT
China's ambassador to Khartoum, Luo Xiaoguang, upped the public pressure on the Sudanese government, according to the Xinhua news agency, which said he urged authorities to find the detained and missing Chinese nationals as soon as possible.
"We hope that the Sudanese government will continue doing its utmost to bring back the missing and abducted Chinese nationals as soon as possible," Luo said, according to Xinhua.
The mass evacuation of tens of thousands of Chinese workers trapped in Libya when fighting broke out there early last year also became a major news event. Chinese workers and engineers in Sudan were also abducted in 2004 and 2008.
China has major interests in oil and infrastructure building in Sudan and South Sudan, but those newly divided two sides are at odds over issues including oil revenues. Each accuses the other of supporting insurgencies.
China has over 100 companies and 10,000 personnel working in both north and south Sudan, China's then-ambassador to Khartoum, Li Chengwen, said last year, according to Xinhua.
The abducted workers are employees of the Sinohydro Corp Ltd, which said they were building a $63.2 million road project funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, the company said, according to the People's Daily website (www.people.com.cn).
South Kordofan is the main oil-producing state in Sudan. The SPLM is the ruling party in newly independent South Sudan, which broke off from its northern neighbour. South Sudan denies supporting SPLM-North rebels across the border.
SPLM-North is one of a number of rebel movements in underdeveloped border areas that say they are fighting to overthrow Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and end what they see as the dominance of the Khartoum political elite. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski)
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