Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday stressed the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) over the army. [More about Hu's speech]

"We must adhere to the fundamental principle of the Party exercising absolute leadership over the army and the fundamental purpose of the army as a people's army," Hu said at a grand gathering marking the 90th founding anniversary of the CPC.

"Strong national defense and a powerful army provide a strong guarantee for upholding China's sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity," said Hu, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

China should intensify efforts to build a revolutionary, modern, and standardized army in an all-around way, said Hu, also chairman of the Central Military Commission.

The scientific development of national defense and the army should be the general guideline to follow, and priority should be given to accelerating change in the way of raising troops' combat effectiveness, Hu said.

"It is important to expand and intensify military preparedness and conduct military exercises with information technology (IT) applications and raise independent defense- and weaponry-related research and development (R&D) capabilities," Hu said.

Hu said China should speed up all-around development of modern logistics and the training of a new type of high-caliber military personnel, and promote reform of national defense and the army in an active yet prudent manner.

"The army should comprehensively enhance its capability to accomplish a range of military tasks, and the most important one is to win limited wars under the conditions of IT application," Hu said.

Hu said the army must be run strictly and in accordance with the law.