The Chinese Communists mainly represented by Xi Jinping have created Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, leading Party officials said Wednesday.

“The Thought is the biggest highlight of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a historic contribution to the Party’s development,” said Zhang Dejiang when joining a panel discussion at the congress opened Wednesday.

“This important thought represents the latest achievement in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context, and is an important component of the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Yu Zhengsheng said while joining another panel discussion.

Liu Yunshan said the elevation of the Thought into the Party’s guiding principle is of great political, theoretical and practical significance. All members of the Party should study hard Xi’s “new era” thought in terms of its historical background, scientific system and practical requirement.

Zhang, Yu and Liu are all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

The Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era builds on and further enriches Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development, according to a report delivered by Xi Jinping at the opening of the congress.

The report listed 14-point fundamental principles of the Thought, ranging from ensuring Party leadership over all work to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Xi unveiled Wednesday morning a two-stage plan to make China a “great modern socialist country” by mid-21st century.

According to the new plan, the CPC will basically realize socialist modernization in the first stage from 2020 to 2035, before developing China into a “great modern socialist country” that is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful” after another 15 years.

“As China enters a new era, the CPC must write a new chapter of 21st century Marxism with a broader vision to achieve the goals set at the milestone congress,” said Chen Shuguang, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

Zhou Yezhong, vice president of Wuhan University and a professor of law, who heard Xi’s report via live broadcast, said the new thought brings the understanding of socialism with Chinese characteristics to a new height, and it turns a new page of times.

“The core status and authority of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, must be firmly safeguarded,” said Pei Chunliang, a delegate to the congress.

Natural disasters left 799 people dead and 90 missing nationwide in the first nine months, according to a statement by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China National Commission for Disaster Reduction Wednesday.

Torrential rain which caused floods and other geological disasters, resulted in 608 deaths, the statement said.

Natural disasters caused a total of 315 billion yuan (about 47.7 billion U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses, and forced relocation of about 4.7 million people.

In addition, more than 139,000 houses were destroyed and another 1.5 million were damaged to varying degrees. The disasters affected about 18.2 million hectares of farmland, with more than two million hectares destroyed.

Academic research papers from China garner the second most worldwide citations, after those from the United States but ahead of those from the United Kingdom, according to a new study.

The analysis was conducted by Amsterdam-based information and analytics company Elsevier and commissioned by the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Citations are the way in which scholars give credit to other researchers and acknowledge their ideas. They indicate how seriously research is taken by other scientists.

Elsevier assessed the performance of the UK’s research base between 2010 and 2014 and compared it with seven other countries: China, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US.

The analysis found that in 2014, research papers originating in China accounted for 18.1 percent of all citations, a sharp increase from the 11 percent it had in 2010.

In comparison, the UK’s share in 2014 was 10.7 percent, which was slightly down from the 11 percent they garnered in 2010. The US saw its share slip from 39.4 percent in 2010 to 35 percent in 2014.

In 2014, China accounted for 19.6 percent of the world’s most heavily cited articles, while the UK produced 15.2 percent.

The report said: “The global research landscape in recent years has become increasingly complex and fluid, and it can only become more so as emerging research nations grow their research bases.”

Authors said the UK and other research-intensive nations are seeing their global shares in key research indicators eroded by emerging countries, “especially by China”.

“As China and other rising research nations succeed in their desire to emulate and even surpass the research performance of countries like the US and the UK, their shares will naturally become larger while the erstwhile powerhouses see theirs shrink,” the report said.

Xi Jinping on Wednesday called on all members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to “secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.”

Xi made the remarks in a report to the 19th CPC National Congress on behalf of the 18th CPC Central Committee.

This is the first time for Xi, who was endorsed as the core of the CPC at the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee last year, to deliver a report at the Party’s national congress.

The original aspiration and the mission of Chinese Communists is to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, Xi told more than 2,300 delegates attending the country’s most important political meeting in five years.

The 96-year-old CPC has more than 89 million members with more than 4.5 million grassroots organizations.

The presidium of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held its first meeting on Tuesday afternoon, approving a report on the examination of delegates’ qualifications by the delegate credentials committee.

The delegates elected are in general outstanding Party members with high ideological and political quality, good style in conduct, strong capability in discussing political affairs, and good professional performance, and they are highly representative, the report said.

Xi Jinping was present and delivered a speech.

Presided over by the congress’ secretary-general Liu Yunshan, the meeting approved a list of the presidium’s 42-member Standing Committee including Xi.

Liu Qibao, Meng Jianzhu, Zhao Leji and Li Zhanshu were approved as deputy secretaries-general of the congress.

According to the examination report, 2,287 delegates were elected from electoral units across the country and the list had been published with the approval of the CPC Central Committee. After examination, qualifications of 2,280 were confirmed valid, putting the actual number of delegates attending the congress at 2,280.

The election began in November last year, the report said, noting that almost all primary CPC organizations and up to 99.2 percent of more than 89 million Party members took part in the election, up from 98 percent five years ago.

It stressed that the election was a competitive one, and more than 15 percent of the preliminary nominees had been eliminated in each electoral unit during the process, except Tibet and Xinjiang, which had been approved to exercise non-competitive election.

The report said that in light of the practice of the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee specially invited 74 delegates to attend the 19th congress and they would enjoy equal rights as elected delegates.

A draft electoral method of the 19th CPC National Congress was approved at the meeting and was handed over to each delegation for deliberation.

The CPC Central Committee decided to invite relevant leading Party officials and a group of non-Communist figures to attend the congress as non-voting participants.

The non-voting participants, totaling 405, include non-delegate members and alternate members of the 18th CPC Central Committee and non-delegate members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, non-delegates nor specially invited delegates but former members of the Central Advisory Commission, among others.

In addition, 149 guests were invited to attend the opening and closing sessions of the congress.

The twice-a-decade congress will open Wednesday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, and last till Oct. 24.