Tourists pose in front of the site of the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. (Photo: VCG)

Chinese people across the country celebrated the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Monday. 

The Party's flagship magazine Qiushi on Monday published the speech of the General Secretary of CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping at a key meeting on May 31 to launch a campaign themed "staying true to our founding mission" among all Party members.

Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, noted in his speech that seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the Party's original aspiration and mission, and the fundamental driving force behind the heroic fight of generations of CPC members.

Xi's speech was echoed by Party members on the internet, with many vowing to forge ahead with the original aspiration. 

Many Party members also vowed to learn from Huang Wenxiu, a village official who died on June 17 in a mountain torrent at the age of 30, and devote themselves to seeking happiness for the people.  

After completing her graduate studies, Huang gave up the opportunity of working in big cities and returned to her hometown, where she devoted herself to the cause of poverty alleviation, Xi noted in a recent instruction honoring Huang, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi stressed that Huang's brilliant young life shows how CPC members are staying true to the Party's founding mission of seeking happiness for the Chinese people and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. 

The number of Party members in China has surpassed 90 million, with a third of them born in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. 

Netizens who are not CPC members also expressed their best wishes to the Party and the country. 

"Stay true to the founding mission and be young forever. Happy birthday my Party!" one netizen said on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo. 

"We've withstood the winds and storms in the past 98 years, nothing can beat us," said another. 

Some net users also posted their photos with Party-related landmarks, sculptures and Party flags, to celebrate the day.

Various celebration activities, including commemorative conferences, tours to patriotic education bases and those to go over the Party admission oath, were also held across China. 

Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Regions staged a performance featuring dances and songs about how the Party had led the region to development and prosperity. Quiz contests on Party history and theories were also held in the region. 

Old revolutionary bases, like Yimeng in East China's Shandong Province, organized tourists to sing songs extolling the Party's heroic fight before the founding of the People's Republic of China. 

Analysts said that celebrations held by Party and non-Party members showed the Chinese people's support for the Party. 

Without the leading role of the CPC, China's political stability and social development would be unimaginable, Zhi Zhenfeng, a legal expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday.