Zhu Rongji, Former Chinese Premier Who Drove Market Reforms, Dies at 97
Zhu served as China's premier from 1998 to 2003 and is credited with steering the country into the World Trade Organization after years of grueling negotiations.
Zhu Rongji, the former Chinese premier who pushed through some of the country's most sweeping economic reforms, has died at 97, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday, according to Channel NewsAsia. The outlet reported he died of illness.
Zhu was born in 1928 in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in central China, according to South China Morning Post. He graduated from Beijing's Tsinghua University in 1951 with a degree in electrical engineering and joined the Communist Party in 1949, the same year Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China, Channel NewsAsia reported.
He was sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, the political upheaval that consumed China in the 1960s and 1970s, but later worked his way back up through the ranks after being politically rehabilitated, Channel NewsAsia reported. He became mayor of Shanghai in 1987, overseeing the early stages of the city's rise into a global financial center, according to the outlet.
From Shanghai To Beijing
Zhu moved to Beijing in 1991 to take a post in the central government and served as vice premier in charge of the economy from 1991 to 1998, according to South China Morning Post. He became premier in 1998, a post he held until 2003.
As premier, Zhu pulled the Chinese economy back from overheating in the early 1990s and later pushed policies that shut down or privatized many state-owned companies, laying off large numbers of workers, according to Channel NewsAsia. He also shifted tax authority away from local officials and toward the central government, and he launched housing reforms that set off a real estate boom, the outlet reported.
South China Morning Post reported that Zhu tackled corruption and centralized fiscal policy at a time when high inflation, rising debt and losses at state enterprises threatened China's financial stability.
A Contested Legacy
Zhu is widely remembered for leading China's difficult negotiations to join the World Trade Organization, which the country entered in 2002, according to Channel NewsAsia and South China Morning Post. At the time, some Chinese officials worried he had given up too much to secure membership and that the concessions would weaken the economy, Channel NewsAsia reported.
Not everyone in China viewed his time in office as a clear success. Channel NewsAsia reported that some critics pointed to missteps in grain policy, tax distribution and factory closures that later leaders had to quietly clean up.
Zhou Ruijin, a former senior editor at the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, said in a 2011 interview that China's leaders after Zhu still had much to learn from his approach, according to Channel NewsAsia. "The Zhu Rongji era was one of promoting big reforms, and it nurtured a group of brave risk-takers who were at the forefront of pioneering a market economy," Zhou said, according to the outlet. "Today ... there is still potential for big steps in reform."
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