BEIJING – China’s former premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, less than a year 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, Mr 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.
The elite economist supported a more open market economy, advocating supply-side reforms in an approach dubbed “Likonomics”, which was never fully implemented.
Ultimately, he had to bend to Mr Xi’s preference for more state control and his former power base waned in influence as Mr Xi installed his own acolytes in powerful positions.
“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, experienced a sudden heart attack on Oct 26 and after all-out efforts to revive him failed, died in Shanghai at 10 minutes past midnight on Oct 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported. An obituary will be published later, it said.
Chinese social media saw an outpouring of grief and shock, with some government websites turning 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 flower.
Laying a wreath in August 2022 at a statue of Deng Xiaoping – the leader who brought transformational reform to China’s economy – Mr Li vowed: “Reform and opening up will not stop. The Yangtze and Yellow River will not reverse course.”