Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, architect of China's economic boom, dies at 97

Death announced

Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji died in Beijing on Wednesday after medical care failed to save him, according to state news agency Xinhua. AP reported his age as 98, while Deutsche Welle, BBC, La Libre, Zeit Online, Handelsblatt, ORF and Notícias ao Minuto all gave his age as 97. Xinhua said he died of illness late on Wednesday morning, with AP specifying the time as around 11 a.m. An official obituary was published jointly by the Communist Party Central Committee, the government and other state organs. Chinese state media described Zhu's life as one of "revolution, struggle and brilliance".

Economic reforms and WTO legacy

Zhu served as premier, China's top economic post, from 1998 to 2003 under President Jiang Zemin. He oversaw a far-reaching transformation of the economy: privatising state housing, closing or restructuring failing state-owned enterprises, centralising tax revenues toward the central government, and overhauling the banking system, which suffered from bad loans. His most lasting economic legacy was China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, which he negotiated as the lead figure despite domestic resistance. The WTO entry opened Chinese factories to international markets and drew foreign investment, helping China become the world's largest exporter and overtake Japan as the second-largest economy by 2010. The reforms came at a steep human cost: BBC reported that the restructuring of state firms led to 30 million layoffs over five years. The shift from a planned economy to a market-oriented one was painful, and the weak social safety net remains a subject of political debate, Handelsblatt noted. The tax centralisation also enabled the state to pursue targeted industrial policy in specific sectors, with consequences still visible today in electric drives, batteries and robotics.

Early career and political exile

Born in 1928 in Changsha, Hunan province, Zhu studied electrical engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He joined the Communist Party in 1949 but was purged twice under Mao Zedong. In the 1950s he was sent to the countryside for manual labour after criticising Mao's economic policies as "irrational", being labelled a "rightist" and praising reforms in other communist countries. He was purged a second time during the Cultural Revolution. After Mao's death, Zhu was rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping. He rose politically in Shanghai, serving as mayor from 1988 to 1991 and then as party secretary, promoted by Jiang Zemin. In 1991 he returned to the central government as vice-premier in charge of the economy, where he battled inflation that threatened to destabilise the country and centralised revenues to strengthen the central state.

A blunt reformer on the world stage

Zhu was known for his directness and impatience, clashing with party conservatives and state industry bosses. In 1998, he warned that China faced "many potential crises that could erupt at any time".

Ordinary people are discontent about us in many ways. Especially, there is corruption among officials, the gulf between rich and poor and the way some local officials act like tyrants.

He called rogue bankers "half-wits" and described Yangtze River flood dykes as "flimsy and porous as tofu dregs". His much-cited remark about "100 coffins, 99 for corrupt officials and one for myself" became legendary, Handelsblatt reported. Internationally, Zhu was respected by figures including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, both of whom wrote prefaces for his 2015 book. In 2002, Zhu inaugurated the German-built Transrapid magnetic levitation train in Shanghai alongside then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. After retiring from politics, Zhu largely withdrew from public life, making rare appearances at Tsinghua University.