Chinese leaders present flowers to heroes' monument on National Day

Top leaders laid flower baskets at the Monument to the People's Heroes in the heart of Beijing Saturday morning to mark the National Day. Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang participated in the ceremony and paid their respect to those who sacrificed for the nation's independence and prosperity. The leaders then walked around the monument, viewing the relief sculptures and inscriptions that display the history of China's struggles for modernity in nearly two centuries. They joined 3,600 representatives from all walks of life in Beijing in the ceremony to mark the 62nd anniversary of founding of the People's Republic of China. The ceremony shows the country's respect for its past and encourages the Chinese people to make greater achievements in the future, said Yang Yu, a Beijing-based news analyst during the live broadcast of the China Central Television. Similar ceremonies were held on the National Day in 2008 and 2010. The ceremony came just two days after the successful launch of China's first space lab module Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace-1, which is seen as a critical step for China to develop the space docking technology and a milestone of the country's manned space program.