China’s outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that corruption could ruin the ruling party during his speech Thursday at the National Congress, a once-a-decade event ushering in a new generation of top officials.

A total of 2,270 delegates, selected from over 82 million, gathered at Beijing's Great Hall of the People to start the seven-day session, held against a backdrop of growing social unrest, public anger at corruption and a wide gap between rich and poor. The fall of former party star Bo Xilai this year publicly brought the graft issue to the forefront.

"If we fail to handle this issue [corruption] well, it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state," Hu said in an opening speech.

"We must never let words act in place of the law or [personal] power replace the law; nor will we allow the ignoring of the law for personal benefit," Hu said.

Even as Chinese people has grown more affluent, corruption among businessmen and officials has exacerbated social tensions these past years as income disparity is rising.

From November 2007 to this February, disciplinary departments across China have punished around 540,000 people in around 520,000 corruption cases in areas including land demolition, mineral resources exploitation, education, medicine, food and office-buying, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The public’s participation in supervising officials is rising in an era of increasing awareness and engagement for a more digitally connected and empowered Chinese public. In September, Yang Dacai, a former senior work safety official in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, was sacked in a corruption scandal after photos were posted online by netizens showing him wearing at least 11 luxury watches on multiple occasions.

Hu also called for further progress in the reform of China's political system, though he didn't offer details.

"The reform of the political structure is an important part of China's overall reform. We must continue to make both active and prudent efforts to carry out the reform of the political structure, and make people's democracy more extensive, fuller in scope and sounder in practice," he said.