SUVA, Feb. 25 -- China's policies towards Pacific island countries have been very successful, and China's aid to these countries is in accordance with their national conditions, a Chinese scholar has said.

A symposium was held in the Samoan capital of Apia on Wednesday, where scholars and officials from China and Oceania discussed China's evolving role in the Pacific region.

Co-organized by the Center for Oceania Studies at China's Sun Yat-sen University, the National University of Samoa and New Zealand Contemporary China Research Center at Victoria University of Wellington, the three-day conference, themed "China and the Pacific: The view from Oceania," is expected to take a multidisciplinary approach to examining Pacific islands perspectives on China's evolving relations with countries in the Pacific region, primarily Polynesia and Melanesia.

In an exclusive telephone interview with Xinhua shortly before the conference kicked off, Prof. Yu Changsen, executive deputy director of the Center for Oceania Studies at Sun Yat-sen University said, "On assistance towards Pacific island countries, China now ranks the third on the donor list, right after Australia and New Zealand, which I think is a very rapid progress."

"China's infrastructure assistance has solved the lack of infrastructure problems in many island countries, and is welcomed by the island countries, which I think is a good deed," Yu said, adding that it simultaneously complements the assistance of other countries, so the entry of China is a positive factor.