President Hu Jintao has called China's 30-year reforms a new type of "great revolution" and urged the country to press forward.
Hu, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remark at a "group study session" held on Friday for members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
China's reform and opening up started 30 years ago after the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which left the country on the verge of economic breakdown. The reforms turned the once poverty-stricken country into one of the world's largest economies.
Hu said the reform and opening up and the socialist path with the Chinese characteristics are the "basic reasons" China can withstand all the challenges, difficulties and risks both from within and outside over the years.
To build a well-off society for 1.3 billion people and a democratic, civilized, harmonious and modernized country, China must firmly push forward reform and opening up and stick to its own path, Hu said.
He added China should solve all conflicts and problems through reforms so as to keep improving development to better suit the country's realities and build a more energetic, efficient and open system for development in a scientific way.
He also urged the Party to continue improving itself with the "innovative spirit" of the reforms, saying that reform and opening up are the "great power" that pushes the Party forward.
Whether the Party could remain closely connected with the public and remain firm as the core leader of China's socialist cause is a "fundamental test" to the Party, Hu said.
The key to stand the test is to more voluntarily and more effectively build the Party with the "innovative spirit" of the reforms, he said.
The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee has a tradition of holding "group study sessions" for better self-improvement.
Two scholars, Zhang Baijia, a researcher with the Party History Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, and professor Yang Qiubao with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, delivered lectures at Friday's session.
(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2008)