"China is not throwing its weight amid China-Africa cooperation, though China´s influence is getting stronger as an emerging power," a senior Tanzanian media official said here on Wednesday.

Mkumbwa Ally, Deputy Managing Editor of Tanzania Standard Newspapers which published the official Daily News and Sunday News among others, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"The cooperation between China and Africa including Tanzania is based on mutual-benefit, that´s not the ´Power matters the most´ policy by some western countries but the way to cooperate with others," Ally said.

China´s assistance to African countries has no strings-attached, which was preferred by African countries, the senior Tanzanian media official said, mentioning the assistance from China to build the Tanzania-Zambia Railway in the 1970s.

"The big project of Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) railway was implemented with China´s assistance, which helped the two African countries, especially the land-locked Zambia a lot in development and once was the main model of transportation in Tanzania," Ally noted.

He added that China´s assistance to Africa was brotherly based and the fourth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Nov. 8-9 and committed to enhance China-Africa cooperation with "people-centered" development, that is "development must look at people´s needs".

Besides assistance, China-African cooperation is also growing in business sectors, for example, Chinese construction companies built many projects in African countries with the same quality but lower costs, which is good for Africa, meaning that the African government can spend less for the same quality, the senior Tanzanian media official noted.

"Economists saw China as an emerging power, which has a lot of room for growth. This is evident, and statistics showed that," Ally said.

As developing countries, African countries sympathize with China because there are many similarities between the two sides faced with the problem of environment and pollution amid development, according to Ally.

"China presented proactive initiative at UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 and helped a lot to find common grounds among all sides to put forward practical measures," he noted.

He stressed that climate change is an issue which needs every country to take measures to reduce pollution as "a very important step to start".

He also reiterated that African countries respected China´s sovereignty with adherence to "no interference with internal affairs".

The senior Tanzanian media official also suggested Chinese media provide more information about what China is doing and the real intention of China to correct the negative image imposed by some Western media on China.

Source: Xinhua