President Hu Jintao, speaking at a rally in Beijing on Wednesday to mark the 50th founding anniversary of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, said that history proves that blindly following Western political systems would lead China to a dead end. He praised the nation's existing people's congress system, saying it has strong vitality and great superiority.

Hu recalled the failures of China's bourgeois republic system established by Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), and various forms of political systems introduced into China before 1949.

The president described the people's congress system as a great invention, integrating the basic principles of Marxism with the actual conditions of China, a natural choice for China's social development.

The people's congress system represents "the common interests and aspirations of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups," said Hu, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

In the 19th century, many great Chinese thinkers struggled to find a way to save the country as China gradually fell into a semi-colonial society plagued by growing national crises as a result of incursions by Western powers and corruption of the feudal ruling class.

The bourgeois democratic revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1911, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), put an end to the millennia-old autocratic monarchy, launched the modern national democratic revolution in its real sense and opened the gate for China's progress, said Hu.

The Revolution of 1911, however, failed to change the nature of China before 1949 and the destiny of the Chinese people since the bourgeois republic system that was established could not ensure the rights of the general public. It was eventually crushed by reactionary forces.

Hu said that the political systems introduced in the following years remained representative of the interests of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and the Chinese people remained oppressed, enslaved and exploited.

History indicates that indiscriminately copying Western political systems is a dead end for China, Hu stressed.

The Chinese people finally came to realize that to achieve national independence, liberation, national prosperity and happy lives, China had to overthrow completely the political system of the exploiting class and establish a brand-new people's democratic political system through which the people are the masters of the country.

"The Communist Party of China logically came into the position of shouldering the historic mission of leading the Chinese people to this great change," said Hu.

The people's congress system, established under the Party, lays a political foundation for China's socialist system and mobilizes the enthusiasm of the people of all nationalities in building and administering the country, he pointed out.

Reviewing the half-century history of the people's congress system and looking at the bright prospects for the country's socialist democratic politics, the president said that China must maintain and improve the system, continue the process of administering the country under the rule of law and mobilize the people to engage fully in the great cause of comprehensively building an affluent society.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2004)