Former Chinese premier Li Keqiang died Friday at 68, AP News reports.
Li Keqiang, a reform-minded administrator who was once predicted to be China’s next leader but was ultimately overshadowed by President Xi Jinping, suffered a heart attack on Thursday and died in Shanghai shortly after midnight, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
During his ten years as premier under Xi, Li built a reputation as a more contemporary Communist Party supporter, setting him apart from his more rigid comrades.
During his tenure in government, the English-speaking professional bureaucrat expressed his endorsement of economic changes.
Li, a poor man from the poor region of Anhui in eastern China and the son of a low-party member, was forced to work as a manual labourer in the fields from 1966 to 1976 during the turbulent Cultural Revolution.
After graduating with a law degree from Peking University, his peers claim he adopted liberal and Western political ideology while translating a British judge’s book.
However, he turned more traditional after entering the official system in the middle of the 1980s and serving as a bureaucrat in 1989, when his former classmates demonstrated in Tiananmen Square.
Li ascended to senior Communist Party official in the northeastern province of Liaoning and the province of Henan, both of which saw economic expansion.
However, during his tenure as party chief in Henan, his management of an HIV/AIDS outbreak resulting from a corrupt blood donation system tarnished his reputation.
Li later rose through the ranks to become Wen Jiabao’s deputy.
Xi’s immense power thwarted his efforts to address China’s severe economic problems; he was previously viewed as Xi’s competitor for the nation’s leadership.
Acclaimed for guiding the nation through the global financial crisis with minimal damage, Xi’s tenure witnessed a significant change in China’s political landscape. Xi’s more focused authority replaced former leader Hu Jintao and his predecessors’ consensus-based governance.
“People always debated whether (China’s) institutions would… determine the outcomes, as opposed to just raw power,” Victor Shih, an expert on China’s elite politics at the University of California, San Diego, told AFP.
“And of course, recent events show that raw power still matters more.”
‘Derailed agenda’
Li’s tenure also slowed China’s economy from the dizzying heights experienced in the 1990s and 2000s.
“He always struck me as very committed to China’s development, intellectually curious, and with a highly sophisticated understanding of the Chinese economy,” Bert Hofman, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, told AFP.
“Events derailed some of his agenda in the past 10 years, but his thinking is still very relevant today.”
Former Peking University classmate Guoguang Wu, now a senior research scholar at Stanford, told AFP that Li “was someone with an ability for independent thought” during their time together.
“Afterwards, he became a government official, and this ability seemed to disappear,” he said.
“I don’t believe he has left a political legacy. History will soon forget him.”
When Li left office, the country was experiencing some of its lowest growth in decades, battered by a COVID-induced slowdown and a crisis in the housing market.
Beijing’s tightening grip over its slowing economy was evident in the appointment of Xi ally Li Qiang, a former Shanghai party boss, as his successor this year.
But in his final speech as outgoing premier, Li struck a bullish tone, saying China’s economy was “staging a steady recovery and demonstrating vast potential and momentum for further growth”.
“Overcoming great difficulties and challenges, we maintained an overall stable economic performance.”
