Li Keqiang, who served as China’s Premier for a decade and was seen by many in his country as one of the last remaining reformist politicians in an era of increasing political centralisation, died early on Friday after a sudden heart attack. He was 68.
News of the death of Mr. Li, who went into early retirement at last November’s Communist Party congress following a clean sweep of top party posts by allies of President Xi Jinping, brought an outpouring of grief on Chinese social media.
The Communist Party in a statement praised Mr. Li as “an excellent CPC member, a time-tested and loyal communist soldier and an outstanding proletarian revolutionist, statesman and leader of the Party and the state.” “After retiring from his leadership position, he firmly embraced and supported the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, cared about the development of the Party and the country’s cause, and firmly supported the construction of clean government and the fight against corruption,” said an official statement.
If Mr. Li had during his two terms as Premier been careful to publicly support Mr. Xi, in truth, he had little choice but to do so, given Mr. Xi’s rapid accumulation of power over the party and military. Even the official obituary statement from the CPC made it a point to mention Mr. Xi’s name six times, and cited among Mr. Li’s achievements his “adherence” to Mr. Xi’s leadership.
Yet differences between the two leaders – from their political styles to policy preferences – were stark and something of an open secret in Beijing. Mr. Li was the pragmatic technocrat, while Mr. Xi brought back the focus on ideology.
Mr. Li represented loosely a politics that spoke to continued momentum in China’s reform and opening up, and a firm focus on the economy, including the private sector, which had emerged as a lynchpin of China’s growth, jobs and innovation. In his last press conference as Premier in March 2022, Mr. Li declared that reform and opening were irreversible like “the Yellow river and Yangtze river which will not flow backward”, comments that struck a chord with the public at the time, three years into harsh COVID-19 restrictions, closed borders and regulatory interventions that had dampened economic sentiment. In 2020, when China’s State media was celebrating Mr. Xi for eliminating extreme poverty, Mr. Li drew praise for reminding, during his annual press conference, that there were 600 million Chinese earning less than $140 a month.
Neither was it lost on the Chinese public when Mr. Xi was calling for continued pandemic restrictions – until rare public protests in November last year brought a sudden end to them – Mr. Li chose to appear in public without wearing a face mask and convened an online meeting of 1 lakh officials to emphasise the importance of jobs and growth amid mass lockdowns. The People’s Daily chose to blank out coverage of the meeting from its front page, relegating it to a short paragraph in the inside pages.
Born in a rural county of eastern Anhui province, Mr. Li joined the Communist Party at the age of 21, in the last year of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). He was among the first students admitted to the elite Peking University when students were allowed to return to campuses after being “sent down to the countryside” by Mao. He graduated with a degree in law, and was the first Chinese Premier with a background in economics and law.
The intellectual milieu of Peking University in the 1980s to some degree explained his more open politics even within the straitjacket of CPC politics. Some of his classmates would become advocates for political and legal liberalisation. Mr. Li, however, trod a more conservative path and jumped headlong into party politics through the Communist Youth League, where his association with Mr. Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao began.
After stints in the provinces garnered him a popular reputation especially among business leaders – one blot was a major crisis in Henan where his government covered up a scandal of mass HIV transmission through a blood donation programme – Mr. Li was initially put forward as the man to replace Mr. Hu. However, Mr. Xi emerged ahead of him at the 2007 Party congress, surprising observers as he was appointed Vice President and the anointed successor for 2012 in Mr. Li’s stead.
“In 2012, the party wanted a strong leader, and Li was not seen to be that kind of persona,” observed Ashok Kantha, who was India’s Ambassador to China between 2014 and 2016. “Yes, there were achievements in the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao years, but also a feeling that corruption had gone out of control and there was drift in the system. That was the context in which Xi took over. Perhaps they didn’t bargain for the ruthlessness that Xi has later shown.”
Taking over as Premier in 2013, Mr. Li did not rock the political boat and focused on running the economy. Yet even in economic decision-making his power was quickly diminished as Mr. Xi ended the “collective leadership” system. Unlike his predecessors Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, Mr. Li had little say in economic policy-making which was moved out from the State Council, or government, to one of several new Party Committees headed by Mr. Xi.
Mr. Li was praised by the leadership for choosing to make the “sacrifice” and retire in November last year although he was eligible for another five-year term on the Politburo Standing Committee. His sudden passing, so soon into his retirement, comes at a politically sensitive time for the party, shortly after the shocking removals of the Foreign Minister and Defence Minister, both of whom were appointed by Mr. Xi, barely a few months into their terms. As with the passing of former President Jiang last year, the party will likely hold a big enough state funeral to give the public space to grieve.
The passing of popular political leaders has, in Chinese politics, often become a rallying point for those displeased with current policies, most notably in 1989. On Friday, posts on social media in China were being carefully monitored and restricted, and some videos of Mr. Li were being deleted although posting links to official announcements of his death was being permitted.
Mr. Li is survived by his wife Cheng Hong, a well-known academic in China and professor of English literature, and one daughter.
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