BEIJING: China's former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday (Oct 27), just 10 months after retiring from a decade in office during which his reformist star had dimmed. He was 68.
Once viewed as a top Communist Party leadership contender, Li was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who tightened his grip on power and steered the world's second-largest economy in a more statist direction.
Chinese social media experienced an outpouring of grief and shock, with some government websites going black-and-white in an official sign of mourning. The Weibo microblogging platform turned its"like" button into a"mourn" icon in the shape of a chrysanthemum. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to bow out of politics, as loyalist from President Xi Jinping’s inner circle takes over
Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said,"All these types of people no longer exist anymore in Chinese politics." Einar Tangen, a senior fellow at Chinese think tank Taihe Institute, said Li’s legacy lives on, pointing to economic policies being pushed forward today.
Li's frequent visits to disaster sites and his easy camaraderie when speaking to ordinary people were also highlighted on Chinese state media. The confident English speaker was immersed in the intellectual and political ferment of the decade of reform under then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. That period ended in the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests that the military crushed.
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