Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in Beijing Sunday that unity and stability are his overriding concerns.

While meeting the press at the end of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), Premier Wen said in response to a question about the incident in 1989 that an important reason for China's tremendous development in the past 15 years was the fact that the Communist Party of China (CPC) maintained China's unity and social and political stability.

"A severe political storm occurred in China at the late 1980s and early 1990s," he said. "At a crucial juncture bearing on the country's destiny, the CPC Central Committee, by relying on the whole party and the people of all ethnicities across the country, continued to the uphold the policies laid down following the third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee held in late 1978 and successfully steered the general situation of China's reform and opening to the outside world, and safeguarded the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

The next two decades will be a very crucial, strategic period for China's development, and unity and stability are his overriding issues, the Chinese premier said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2004)