By Linny Folau in China

China wants to share its development experiences with other countries, with a belief that everybody in the world shares the same future, Pacific Island journalists learned this week when they visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing.

The Deputy Director-General of the Department of North American and Oceania Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xu Xueyuan, answered questions  during a briefing for the visiting journalists on December 12.

She said China and the Pacific share lots of common interests but development is the most important area and this, domestically, is still top priority for their government

"Why China is interested in the Pacific Islands is that we offer our experience and assistance on the basis of mutual respect and common interests, with development the most important area and a top priority," she said.

Journalists asked why China is interested in the Pacific islands as it is very far geographically.

Xu Xueyuan said that China has always considered itself as a member of the developing countries, although they are much stronger and have more resources than many other developing countries.

“We think if needed we would love to share our experiences with other developing countries and that does not mean we want to impose our experience and model on anyone else. If asked, we would like to share our experiences and our theory of how to improve the living standard of people.”

She said China now has a concept that everybody in the world shares the same future and all countries needs to work together to make sure the future benefits everybody.

"We are promoting this idea of world community of a shared future, because we uphold this notion and believe that we have a very good chance to achieve those goals by working together with everyone. We think it is very important for developing countries to have more connection with each other and share experiences to help each other," she said.

In addition, China is now in a better position to provide assistance to other countries. She said the assistance from China is different from other western countries because they do not ask for pre-conditions for their foreign assistance.

“We offer our experience and our assistance on the basis of mutual respect and common interests, so this is a basic concept of why China is interested in the Pacific Islands.”

It is true China is very visible in many Pacific islands over recent years. "We want to be more than donors, we want to be partners, for example, in people to people exchange like the visit of this group is very good example of this exchange."

She said they are also sending more performance groups to the islands so that local people can understand and have a glimpse of China’s culture, as well as teachers teaching Chinese.

"In Tonga for example, there are many Chinese running small stores and the local police asked our embassy to offer some Chinese classes to provide better protection to local Chinese because most do not speak good English or the local dialect."

“We would like to help build the standard of local people and their development.”

The group of senior Pacific islands journalists are in China this week on an invitation program this week sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.