Quotable Quotes: Xi Jinping on building world-class universities

BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for blazing a new path to building world-class universities with Chinese characteristics during a visit to Renmin University of China on Monday.

The subject was a recurring theme in Xi's inspection visits to universities over the past few years.

The following are some highlights of his remarks:

-- To blaze a new path to developing world-class universities based on Chinese conditions and with Chinese characteristics, we must stay committed to the Party's leadership and the guidance of Marxism and serve the cause of the Party and the people.

-- For China to build world-class socialist universities with Chinese characteristics and to cultivate the next generation of socialists, there must be world-class professors.

-- In China, a country with a unique history, distinctive culture and special national context, we cannot blindly follow others or simply copy foreign standards and models when we build world-class universities of our own. Instead, we must proceed from our country's realities and blaze a new path to building world-class universities with Chinese characteristics.

-- We should constantly promote the creative transformation and development of fine traditional Chinese culture, and step up knowledge innovation, theoretical innovation and method innovation, so that China's philosophy and social sciences can truly stand in the academe of the world.

-- The need for higher education, and for scientific knowledge and talented people, is more pressing than ever before for the development of the cause of the Party and the country.

-- The world-class universities we are building are world-class universities of socialism with Chinese characteristics. China's socialist education cause aims at nurturing a new generation of capable young people who have a good and all-round moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding and are well-prepared to join the socialist cause.