Xi urges youths to contribute to 'Chinese dream'

This has been the first time for the new Chinese leadership to elaborate the relationship between the youths and the "Chinese dream."

In the course of pursuing the road to modernization in China during the past century, young people have always been an important force of realizing social transformation and national rejuvenation, said Zheng Changzhong, a scholar with the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University.

In an information era, China's development needs the youth to be more united with consensus. The "Chinese dream" concept should be able to play a role of a banner to inspire young people to strive for a better life and a stronger nation, Zheng said.

Also on Thursday, Xi told Peking University students to make contribution "with pioneer spirits."

The Chinese dream is a dream of the nation and every Chinese including young people, Xi wrote in a letter to students of archaeology and museology major whom he met at the university last year.

"Only by integrating individual dreams to the national cause can one finally make great achievement," he said.

Xi said he expected young people to "cherish the glorious youth, strive with pioneer spirit and contribute their wisdom and energy to the realization of the Chinese dream."

Echoing Xi's remarks, Vice President Li Yuanchao on Saturday said young people should never stop learning or making contributions.

He told a group of outstanding young people in Beijing to grasp great opportunities from China's development to achieve progress in their own careers.

The Chinese Youth Day was established in December 1949 to commemorate the beginning of the May 4th Movement in 1919, a student protest that grew out of dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles settlement. It is regarded by China as a patriotic movement against imperialism and feudalism.