Symposium marks 60th anniversary of CPC call for building New China

BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhua) -- A symposium was held here Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of a call made by the Communist Party of China (CPC) for building New China in united efforts.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body, attended the gathering.

The call, which is known as "May 1 slogan", was put forward by the CPC on April 30, 1948, calling on non-Communist parties, people's organizations and personages without party affiliation to convene political consultative conference, discuss and convene the people's congress meeting, and found a democratic coalition government of New China.

Addressing the symposium, Jia said that the call then received ardent responses from the non-Communist parties and personages with no party affiliation, which indicated that they willingly accepted the CPC's leadership. He said the call opened a new chapter for China's multi-party cooperation cause, which has developed robustly in the past 60 years and made great contributions to the country's socialist revolution, construction and reform.

Practice has proven that the multi-party cooperation and political consultation system under the CPC leadership was a basic political system of the country and a great invention conforming to the situation of the country, which should be unswervingly adhered to and unwaveringly further developed, Jia said.

He said experience from the past 60 years of multi-party cooperation was that the CPC's leadership, unity and joint efforts, socialist democracy, equal consultation and democratic supervision were the principles that must be always followed.

He urged the parties to take the 60th anniversary as an opportunity to further propel the development of the multi-party cooperation system and socialism with Chinese characteristics, and work together to build China into a moderately prosperous society.

Representatives of the non-Communist personages said at the symposium that a retrospect of the history indicated that only under the CPC leadership could China win independence and national liberation and could the Chinese people have a bright future.