Party General Secretary Hu Jintao delivered an important speech at the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on June 25, which set off an enthusiastic response from among leading officials and the masses of people nationwide. This speech, imbued with rich connotations and in-depth ideological contents, analyzes in a scientific way the new situation and new tasks China is now facing. It answers a series of theoretical and practical issues in the future development of the Party and the state, and provided a vital political, ideological and theoretical basis for the 17th CPC National Congress to be convened in coming October.

Confronted with the new situation and new tasks, Hu notes in his speech, "we should persevere in taking Deng Xiaoping theory and the important thought of 'the three representatives' as the guidance (Note: By "the three representatives, it is meant that the CPC must always represent the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China), carry out the scientific outlook on development in a deep-going way, go on emancipating the mind, keep up reform and the opening to the outside world, spur scientific development and promote social harmony, and strive for new victories in building a society, in which people will enjoy a fairly affluent and comfortable life."

This constitutes a great demand for the work of the whole party. To accomplish this demand, we should unswervingly take the great road of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The socialism with Chinese characteristics is the banner of social development and progress for the contemporary China and the banner of the united struggles of the whole Party and the people of all ethnicities country-wide.

To learn this important, enlightening speech of Hu's, we should understand penetratingly and strive assiduously to display "Four Perseverances" while taking the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The emancipation of the mind is an essential demand of the Party's ideological line as well as a magic weapon with which we use to respond to new circumstances and new problems and keep up opening the new cause and new situations, and we must keep to it unswervingly.

Reform and opening-up constitute an inevitable requirement for liberating and developing social productive forces and going on to innovate the vigorous structural mechanism, and a powerful motive force for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it should be spurred adamantly.

Scientific development and social harmony represent a basic demand for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and an intrinsic requirement to bring about the better and faster socio-economic development, and it has to be implemented perseveringly.

And the all-round development of a relatively well-off society implies the goal the CPC and the state have all-along been striving for till the year 2020, and this is also where lie the fundamental interests of the whole nation and the people of all ethnicities in China, and it is what we should unremittingly and perseveringly work for. These "four perseverances" should be borne in mind and translated into actions.

Since the 16th CPC National Congress held in late 2002, the Party Central Committee has inherited and carried forward the important thought of the Party's third-generation collective leadership and set forth the scientific outlook (or concept) on development. Such a concept is aimed primarily at the development with its first and foremost emphasis centered on taking people first and with the basic requirements for a comprehensively coordinated and sustained growth and with the fundamental ways for solution of all-round arrangements. To implement the scientific outlook on development, it is vital and imperative to keep to the Party's basic line of "one central task (referring to economic construction)" and "two basic points" and go in for building a harmonious socialist society. Under the present situations both at home and golbally, we should analyze scientifically new topics and new contradictions facing China’s various tasks amid the in-depth development of industrialization, urbanization, marketization and globalization while bearing in mind China's specific national conditions at the primary stage of socialism so as to open up a still broader development perspective for the socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The serial new theses and new demands Hu Jintao has set forth on those issues of prime importance have shown the orientation of how doing China's various kinds of work better still.

Whenever the CPC is at a major turn or a critical juncture in history, the central Party authority has always given heed to the unity of thinking for the entire party and the study of relevant theories for guidance among its members. At present, leading officials at various levels should study Hu's speech conscientiously and pool or channel their wisdom and strength into a trying endeavor to carry on the reform and opening-up, promote social harmony and build a better-off society. So people in the Party should keep up both their study and work, and enhance their unity at the same time remaining sober-minded ideologically, steadfast politically and pragmatic with their style of work.

(People's Daily Online July 19, 2007)