China supports Africa's choice to develop independently and will scale up assistance and cooperation with African countries to help them build greater capacity toward this goal.

Top Chinese political adviser Jia Qinglin delivered this message as he spoke at the opening ceremony of the 18th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) on Sunday in the AU's Chinese-funded conference center in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia.

"We will firmly support African countries' independent choice of development path. We maintain that all countries, big or small, are equal and we are opposed to the big, strong and rich bullying the small, weak and poor," said Jia, who ended his two-day visit to Ethiopia and the AU on Sunday.

He stressed that China has always respected the sovereignty and development path of African countries and refrained from interfering in their internal affairs.

"We have always regarded assistance and support between China and Africa as mutual and have never attached political strings to our assistance to Africa, and (we) promote African development through China's development."

The audience in the conference hall applauded in response to Jia's comments.

In a message wishing great success for the 18th AU summit, President Hu Jintao on Sunday hailed the AU as one of the most influential regional organizations in the world.

Hu said China has always been "Africa's good friend, good partner and good brother".

Further consolidating and strengthening Sino-African unity and cooperation and promoting common development are important cornerstones of China's foreign policy and a long-term strategic choice that China is firmly committed to, he said.

Hu said China will work with Africa to take the China-Africa strategic partnership to a higher level, making an even greater contribution to the cause of peace and development in Africa and the world. To achieve this goal, Jia put forward five concrete proposals in his speech: promoting the Sino-African traditional friendship, intensifying coordination and cooperation on international and regional issues, raising economic cooperation, expanding people-to-people exchanges and enhancing the building of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

To further strengthen China-AU friendship and cooperation, Jia announced China will provide 600 million yuan ($94.7 million) in free assistance to the AU in the next three years. "We are ready to work with the AU to improve the mechanism of China-AU strategic dialogue and enhance cooperation in cross-border and cross-region infrastructure development in Africa and in areas pertaining to African peace and security, thus adding new substance to the development of China-Africa relations," Jia said.

Jia said the international community should pay more attention to the issue of African development.

The international community should actively deliver on its aid commitment, take concrete actions to accommodate African concerns in the context of the WTO Doha Round negotiations and the reform of the international financial system and make the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development this year focus more on sustainable economic and social development in Africa.

Analysts said that the FOCAC has been working well, and the Sino-African partnership has progressed under this creative framework.

"China, as the biggest trade partner with the continent, continues increasing its trade volume while attaching more importance to the human talents, capital and technology cooperation with Africa as they are the key factors for development," said Jin Canrong, deputy dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China.

Jin said Africans have strengthened their sense of self-determination in the past year in situations such as the Libya and Somalia crises.

"They have repeatedly stressed their will to solve their problems by themselves, which is a good sign," he said.

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