Chinese President Jiang Zemin said in Beijing on Deceomber 31 that the Chinese nation will be rejuvenated in the new century due to the motherland's complete reunification and the establishment of a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and modern socialist country.

During a mid-night gala marking the coming new century and millennium, Jiang, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that the Chinese people will unshakably proceed along the road of building socialism with Chinese characteristics; China's socialist system will be consolidated and perfected through continuous reforms; and its development will lead to national prosperity through the common advancement in all regions.

He said that before the past millennium, the world acknowledged glorious Chinese civilization developed several thousand years ago, and China maintained its prominent position in the world until the 15th century.

Due to the slow growth of productive forces and social and political decadence, China gradually fell behind other nations, and as a result it fell into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society up to the modern times, suffering the bullying and humiliation of world powers, he said.

However, he said, the Chinese people did not yield but waged an arduous struggle for generations. The CPC, represented by Comrade Mao Zedong and combining the basic Marxist principles with the real conditions in China, led the Chinese people in a great revolution and established new China in the middle of this century. China has since entered a new epoch of socialism.

"Now, the Chinese people are making giant leaps toward modernization along the road of reform and opening-up pioneered by Comrade Deng Xiaoping," he stressed.