(2) We must link adhering to the four Cardinal Principles with carrying on reform and opening up, consistently giving priority to economic development, and steering reform and opening up forward on the right course.
During the past 30 years, we have unswervingly upheld the basic line of the Party, adhering to the Four Cardinal Principles to make sure our reform and opening up is on the right track, while giving new contemporary implication to the Four Cardinal Principles through reform and opening up. We have combined our central task of economic development and the two basic points of sticking to the Four Cardinal Principles and reform and opening up with our great practice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. As a result, our socialism with Chinese characteristics has gained a steady and firm footing in China, and has been filled with enormous vigor and vitality in the face of profound changes around the world and in China today.
Based on the scientific thesis that China is still in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so for a long time to come, the CPC established the basic line of the Party through this primary stage, namely, leading and uniting peoples of all ethnic groups, taking economic development as the central task, adhering to the two basic points of the Four Cardinal Principles and reform and opening up, and striving through self-reliance and persistent hard work to build China into a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious modern socialist country. Taking economic development as our central task is vital to invigorating our nation and is the fundamental requirement for the robust growth and lasting stability of the Party and the nation. The Four Cardinal Principles are the very foundation for building our country and the political cornerstone for the survival and development of the Party and the nation. Reform and opening up is the path to a stronger China and the source of vitality for the Party and the nation in development and progress. We must continue to apply the line of "one central task and two basic points," which form an interdependent and inalienable whole, never deviate from it even for a single moment, or emphasize one at the expense of the other. We must thoroughly adhere to this line and implement it in its entirety. If we do not concentrate on the central task, we will lose the material base on which our socialist society develops and progresses in an all-round manner; if we do not uphold the Four Cardinal Principles and reform and opening up, we will lose the orientation and dynamics of our economic development. The crux of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics is that we must base all our efforts on the most significant reality that China is still in the primary and underdeveloped stage of socialism, where the principal contradiction is between the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and the low level of social production. This has set the fundamental task for socialism: releasing and developing productive forces and continuously improving people's livelihoods. To solve all the problems China now faces, the key lies in our reliance on self-development.
Over the past 30 years, while unswervingly sticking to the strategic thinking of taking development as the fundamental principle and adhering to the Four Cardinal Principles and reform and opening up, we have consistently committed ourselves to the central task of economic development, continued to release and develop social productive forces, and constantly consolidated the material base of socialism. The Party's basic line is essential for building, developing and rejuvenating our country; it is a political guarantee for scientific development, the lifeblood of the Party and the nation, and the key to improving people's livelihoods. Therefore, we must unswervingly adhere to this basic line of the Party, have infinite faith in it and take firm action in carrying it out. We will steadfastly take the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and will neither take the old path of developing a closed country in a rigid and doctrinaire way, nor take the wrong course of building China into a capitalist state.