Former Chinese premier and potential rival to President Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, died unexpectedly at the age of 68.
According to Xinhua, Li Keqiang was on vacation in Shanghai when he suffered a heart attack. Doctors tried to save him, but he died ten minutes after midnight on Friday, October 27.
Xinhua reports that “an obituary will be published later,” which the Financial Times said could indicate the Chinese Communist Party’s intention to pay tribute to the former head of the State Council.
Li Keqiang has led the government in Beijing since March 2013 and after his re-election in 2018, he held the position until March this year. He was replaced by Li Qiang, who was appointed to the party’s Politburo Standing Committee in late 2022. The latter’s candidacy was nominated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in March this year. he broke with half a century of tradition and began his third term as president of the People’s Republic of China.
China. Li Keqiang was an advocate of economic reform
Li Keqiang was the second most influential person in the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). When he headed the government, his main task was to solve a number of socio-economic problems, including the urbanization of the country, reducing the income gap between urban and rural populations, and combating unemployment.
As Prime Minister, he criticized the strict restrictions imposed by Xi Jinping due to the COVID-19 pandemic and spoke about the challenges facing the economy.
As Bloomberg notes, the Chinese leader has limited Li Keqiang’s influence on the economy in recent years by delegating decisions in this area to a number of party committees led by Xi Jinping himself and his adviser Liu He.
– There was a lot of talk about the prime minister as a savior, the person who would lead the internal opposition against Xi. But now it is clear that this could not have happened, said Christopher Johnson, a former CIA analyst in China, after Li Keqiang left the government.
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
