The Chinese government on Tuesday announced that it would send an engineering unit to Darfur in Sudan to participate in implementation of the second phase of a UN support plan for the African Union (AU) mission in the region.

"China has actively participated in the UN's peace-keeping mission in Sudan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing.

Jiang said China had a clear stance on and had played a constructive role in the Darfur issue.

"Under current circumstances, the parties concerned should keep pushing forward the political process in the Darfur region and phase in the Annan plan, but not take any action to escalate the situation," said Jiang.

The UN, the AU and the Sudanese government agreed in November last year on the three-phase support plan, also known as the Annan plan as it was put forward by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The first phase, a light support package, was already underway, and the three parties reached an agreement in principle in Addis Ababa on April 9 to inaugurate the second phase of a UN support plan for the AU mission in Darfur, known as "the heavy support phase".

Answering a question on China's weapons sales to African countries, Jiang said China had always taken a prudent and responsible attitude on arms exports, only exporting weapons to sovereign countries rather than individuals or other entities.

China also required importing countries to identify the final intended use of the weapons, and requested them not to transfer imported weapons to third countries, she said.

China strictly abided by UN resolutions and never exported weapons to countries and regions on which the UN imposed arms embargoes, she said, adding the amount of China's arms export to Africa was quite limited.