China marks 60th anniversary of People's Republic military parade, Hu Jintao's speech (1st Lead)

Oct 1, 2009, 4:04 GMT

   Beijing - Some 200,000 people gathered Thursday in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

   The soldiers, civilians, top Communist Party members and invited guests watched China's first major military parade in 10 years and a landmark speech by President Hu Jintao.

   Hu reviewed troops and military hardware from an open-top Red Flag limousine, greeting troops with alternate shouts of 'Hello, comrades!' and 'Hard work, comrades!'

   He then returned to the Tiananmen Rostrum to make his prepared speech, paying tribute to the 'great achievements' of Mao Zedong, who proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949, and later leaders Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.

   Hu said the ruling Communist Party would continue with its economic development on the 'road of socialism with Chinese characteristics,' and promote stability and unity.

The future China would be a 'civilized, harmonious, strong and democratic modernized socialist nation,' he said.

   'Long live the People's Republic of China! Long live the Chinese Communist Party! Long live the people of China!' Hu said at the close of his speech.

   In the military parade, the People's Liberation Army showed dozens of its latest weapons systems including nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, drones, attack helicopters and early-warning aircraft.

   About 180,000 civilians and soldiers later performed a show with the three key themes of 'ideology, achievements and future prospects.'

   'Ideology' was represented by three mass formations bearing huge portraits and ideological slogans associated with Hu and former party leaders Mao, Deng and Jiang.

   Many of the 60 floats in the civilian parade were designed to highlight China's achievements in such fields as science, industry, trade, agriculture, education and its use of the controversial 'one- child' family-planning policy to limit its population to 1.3 billion people.

   The city mobilized about 800,000 volunteers to assist hundreds of thousands of security guards, uniformed and plain-clothes police, paramilitary units, anti-terrorist forces and the local People's Militia.

   Thursday's celebrations were shown live by state-run China Central Television, whose broadcasts were interspersed with archive footage of historic events over the last 60 years.