Li Keqiang passes away

Li recently had a rest in Shanghai. On Oct. 26, Li had a sudden heart attack and passed away at 00:10 on Oct. 27 after all rescue measures failed. He died at the age of 68.

Li, who was nominally China’s No. 2 leader until late last year, served as the country’s premier – traditionally in charge of the economy – for a decade from 2013 to March this year under leader Xi Jinping.

During his time in the role, Li navigated the world’s second-largest economy through a challenging period of rising technology and trade tensions with the United States, mounting government debt and unemployment, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his final year in power, the economist by training had been a strong voice warning of challenges to China’s economy amid widespread Covid-19 lockdowns.

He backed efforts to boost employment and maintain economic stability.

As the news of Li’s death broke Friday morning, social media users circulated a line from Li’s annual address to China’s rubber stamp parliament in 2022, where he pledged that, “No matter how the international environment may change, China will keep the course of wider openness.”

Li, known to use his English language skills on occasion in appearances outside the mainland, was seen as representing a different approach to China’s ties with the world, at a time when the country’s relations with the West have grown increasingly strained.

Li, a highly educated technocrat with degrees in law and economics, was considered friendly to the private sector.

Under Hu, Li was named to the party’s top leadership body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in 2007.

He previously held key roles as party chief in industrial Liaoning province and was provincial leader of Henan, an agricultural base.

Born in Anhui, Li spent his late teens doing manual labor with the Dongling Production Brigade in the eastern province during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long social and political upheaval launched by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Li was among the first batch of students to sit the college entrance exam after it was reinstated following the end of the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, he enrolled at the prestigious Peking University, where he studied law and later obtained a doctorate in economics.

Li is not considered one of China’s princelings hailing from a prominent party family. He held positions in the Communist Youth League Central Committee during the 1980s and 90s.