Xi hails great future for Chinese nation

BEIJING -- Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China's socialist system demonstrates great strength and vitality, and the Chinese people and the Chinese nation embrace brilliant prospects.

"Our Party shows strong, firm and vibrant leadership," Xi said at the closing session of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

"Living in such a great era, we are all the more confident and proud, and also feel the heavy weight of responsibility upon us," Xi told more than 2,300 delegates and specially invited delegates to the congress which opened on Oct 18.

It has been 96 years since the CPC was founded, 68 years since the People's Republic of China was established, and 39 years since reform and opening up began.

The CPC has united and led the Chinese people and the Chinese nation in ending "once and for all" the miserable plight of old China, which had been bullied by foreign aggressors following the Opium War of 1840, and in walking completely out of poverty and weakness, Xi said.