Xi stresses striving for national rejuvenation ahead of PRC's 70th founding anniversary

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits Shuangqing Villa, where Mao Zedong had worked and lived, in the Fragrant Hills in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 12, 2019. Xi visited a revolutionary memorial site in the Fragrant Hills in suburban Beijing on Thursday. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, Sept. 12 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called on the whole Party and nation to strive for realizing the two centenary goals and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the call when visiting a revolutionary memorial site in the Fragrant Hills in suburban Beijing ahead of the 70th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

He urged the whole Party and nation to work together closely to consolidate the achievements made in the past seven decades and make the country better in the future.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the tour.

On March 23, 1949, the CPC Central Committee and Comrade Mao Zedong left Xibaipo, a revolutionary base of the CPC in Hebei Province, for Beijing. Two days later, they moved to the Fragrant Hills, making it the seat of the CPC Central Committee at that time.

During the tour, Xi first visited Shuangqing Villa, where Mao Zedong had worked and lived, and then walked to another nearby place, where other members of the older generation of revolutionaries Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi had worked and lived.

After that, at a revolutionary memorial museum, he visited an exhibition on the history of the CPC Central Committee during that period, watching documentaries and reliving the history of how the CPC Central Committee moved into Beijing in 1949.

The Fragrant Hills was the headquarters for the CPC to win the War of Liberation and the New Democratic Revolution, and a symbol marking the shift of the focus of China's revolution from rural areas to cities, Xi said.

Commemorating this part of history is to strengthen confidence in the path, theory, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, to embolden ourselves to carry out the great struggle with many new historical characteristics, and to overcome any difficulties ahead, Xi said.

He also stressed the need to always have the wholehearted support of the people, to always maintain close ties with the people and to always fight to realize the aspirations of the people to live a better life.

The CPC members should always maintain the enterprising spirit, ensure the Party's purity and advanced nature, and pass the test of the new era, Xi said.

"Looking ahead, China has a very bright prospect for development," Xi said.