Chinese ex-Premier Li Keqiang dies at 68

Chinese former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, 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.

The elite economist supported a more open market economy, advocating supply-side reforms in an approach dubbed “Likonomics” that was never fully implemented.

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“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 ten minutes past midnight on Oct. 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.

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.

Li Keqiang was premier and head of China’s cabinet under Xi for a decade until stepping down from all political positions in March.

Laying a wreath in August 2022 at a statue of Deng Xiaoping – the leader who brought transformational reform to China’s economy – Li Keqiang vowed: “Reform and opening up will not stop. The Yangtze and Yellow River will not reverse course.”

Video clips of the speech, which went viral but were later censored from Chinese social media, were widely viewed as a coded criticism of Xi’s policies.