Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack this Friday (27). Keqiang’s death comes seven months after his retirement from the post of prime minister, which he held for a decade. He was 68 years old.
Once seen as a leading candidate for the leadership of the Communist Party, Li, known as a more reformist, has been sidelined in recent years by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has tightened his grip on power and led the country’s second-largest economy. world in a more statist direction.
He was an economist and supported a more open market economy, advocating supply-side reforms in an approach dubbed “Likonomics” that was never fully implemented.
However, during his time as prime minister, he had to bow to Xi’s preference for more state control, and his former power base lost influence as Xi installed his own allies in powerful positions.
“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, suffered a sudden heart attack on October 26th, and after all efforts to revive him failed, he died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on the 27th. October,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Chinese social media showed respect for Li Keqiang, with some government websites turning black and white in an official sign of mourning. The microblogging platform Weibo turned its “like” button into a “mourning” icon in the shape of a chrysanthemum, a flower that in China represents the power of Chinese emperors.
Li was China’s prime minister and chief cabinet under Xi for a decade until he stepped down from all political roles in March.
Laying a wreath in August 2022 at a statue of Deng Xiaoping — the leader who brought transformative reform to China’s economy — Li promised: “Reform and opening up will not stop. The Yangtze and the Yellow River will not reverse course.”
Videos of the speech, which went viral but were later censored on Chinese social media, as they were widely seen and understood as a coded criticism of Xi’s policies.
“Li has been seen as the representative of reformists,” said Yun Sun, director of the Stimson Center in Washington. “But during his 10 years as premier, China saw the regression of many policies.”
End of an era
Li sparked a debate about poverty and income inequality in 2020, saying that 600 million people in an increasingly rich China earned less than $140 a month.
Some Chinese intellectuals and members of the liberal elite expressed shock and dismay on a semi-private WeChat channel at the passing of a pillar of China’s liberal economic reform, with some saying it signaled the end of an era.
“Li will probably be remembered as a champion of the freer market and the have-nots,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University. “But most of all, he will be remembered for what he could have been.”
Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said: “All these types of people no longer exist in Chinese politics.”
Li was less influential than his immediate predecessors as prime minister, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, Wu said. “He was marginalized, but what else could he have done? It was very difficult for him, with the restrictions he faced under Xi.”
Adam Ni, an independent China political analyst, described Li as “a premier who stood by helplessly as China veered sharply away from reform and opening up.”
A glowing profile of Li in state media in 2014, which praised him as “a calm and tough wall-breaker,” went viral shortly after the announcement of his death. The profile emphasized his hard work and tenacity in promoting economic reforms.
Li’s frequent visits to disaster sites and his easy camaraderie when speaking to ordinary people have also been highlighted in Chinese state media.
Some social media users mentioned a song called “Sorry it wasn’t you,” a thinly veiled reference to Xi. The song went viral around the time of former president Jiang Zemin’s death in November last year, before being censored.
Li is survived by his wife Cheng Hong, an English teacher, and his daughter.
Source: CNN Brasil
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