China Marks 60th Anniversary of CPPCC's Founding

Chinese president Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Premier Wen Jiabao, other top leaders and more than 800 representatives from various fields have gathered in Beijing to mark the 60th anniversary of China's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC.

In a keynote speech at the gathering, President Hu Jintao described the CPPCC as a patriotic United Front of the Chinese people, a major institution of the multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and a main form to display socialist democracy in the country's political life. Wang Ling has more.

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President Hu Jintao said the CPPCC has made tremendous achievements over the past six decades.

"The CPPCC was founded coinciding with the founding of New China. It has gone through an extraordinary process, a process of development with the New China, a process of striving for a prosperous and united country."

The First Plenary Session of the CPPCC was held on September 21, 1949, in Beijing, which was then called Beiping.

At that session, Beijing was selected as the capital of the People's Republic of China, the five-star red flag was made China's national flag, and the March of the Volunteers was chosen as the national anthem.

The President noted that after the founding of New China, the National Committee of the CPPCC and its Standing Committee have been a united front and played an irreplaceable role in consultations and consolidating the people's political power.

"History has proven that the CPPCC is a democratic political form in accordance with China's concrete practice. It's a great creation of China's construction of a socialist democracy. It goes along with the tide of the development of democracy in the world, and at the same time fully represents Chinese people's political wisdom. It has great vitality and potential in the eyes of people, and should be cherished and further consolidated in the future."

In his speech, the President also praised the great contribution that CPPCC has made to restoring and developing the national economy and assisting the government in carrying out social reforms and expanding the people's democratic united front.

Over the past 60 years, more than 85 thousand bills have been proposed through the CPPCC system on various levels. These bills cover all ethnic groups and patriotic forces, and help promote economic growth, enliven the country's political and social activities and mobilize all positive factors to serve the country's development.

President Hu Jintao stressed that promoting a system of multi-party cooperation and incorporating that into the country's political life is greatly important to the Communist Party of China's ability to administer and consolidate its ruling status.

"We should further strengthen the activeness of political consultation, verifying the form and structure of the consultation system, and bringing the system into the process of decision making. We should also actively probe and perfect the democratic supervision, smoothing the supervising channels and adopting the correct and profound insight from the consultation system, thus making the CPPCC a reflection of the people's wisdom and opinion."

Wang LIng, CRI news.