Who was Zhu Rongji, China’s former premiere and economic reformer who helped power the country’s rise, dies at 97?

Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, a prominent economic reformer, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 97 (or 98, according to conflicting reports). Zhu served as China's premier from 1998 to 2003, leading a transformative period in China's economic shift from a centrally planned system to a more market-oriented economy.

Born in Changsha, Hunan province in 1928, Zhu earned an electrical engineering degree from Tsinghua University and joined the Communist Party of China in 1949. His political career advanced in Shanghai, where he served as mayor and Communist Party secretary from 1987 to 1991. During this time, Zhu promoted market-oriented reforms as Shanghai developed into a global financial and commercial center.

In 1991, Zhu became vice premier and later joined the Politburo Standing Committee. He assumed the role of premier in March 1998, holding this position until 2003. Zhu's tenure was marked by a series of sweeping reforms to address China's economic challenges, such as high inflation, mounting debt, and inefficiencies within state-owned enterprises.

Zhu's most notable achievement was securing China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which accelerated China's integration into international markets and transformed the country into a major participant in global trade. His reforms helped lay the institutional foundations for China's emergence as a global economic powerhouse, despite significant social costs, including widespread job losses in the state sector.

Zhu was closely associated with the reformist economic approach of Deng Xiaoping, who is considered the architect of China's post-Mao economic transformation. Their shared belief in market-oriented reforms shaped the economic policies that moved China further from a Soviet-style centrally planned model. Zhu's reforms also contributed to rapid growth in China's property and construction sectors, promoting home ownership and supporting what later became a massive real-estate boom.