At the 19th meeting of the Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 14th meeting of the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering on Monday, President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech in which he emphasized that China must continue to make progress in science and technology and endeavor to become the world's innovation highland if it wants to achieve prosperity and rejuvenation.

Xi's speech summarized the achievements and experiences of China's science and technology cause since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and was a call for action to deploy technological innovation in the new era. In the past five years, the contribution rate of technological progress increased from 52.2 percent to 57.5 percent, and China's innovation capacity was ranked No 17 worldwide up from No 20 in 2012. But he also pointed to some of the challenges China faces in advancing its science and technology.

He said the achievements were made because of the country's insistence on the Party's leadership in the cause of science and technology, the insistence on the goal of building a world scientific and technological power, the insistence on the path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics, the insistence on deepening reform to stimulate innovation, the insistence on innovation driven by talent, and the insistence on adhering to the global network of scientific and technological innovation.

These six insistences are not only the valuable fruit of practice, but also the fundamental guarantees for China to win an advantage in the future competition in science and technology.

Xi's speech has given strong momentum to the cause of building China into a great power in science and technology.