Zhu Rongji, the former Chinese premier who played a key role in opening China’s economy to the global market, has died at the age of 97.
State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Zhu died of illness at around 11 a.m. local time on Wednesday in Beijing. He was 97.
A sharp-tongued and reform-minded economist, Zhu played a pivotal role in overhauling China’s state-owned industrial sector in the 1990s. The measures he introduced helped lay the foundations for the country’s rapid economic growth. Under his leadership, China also joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).
As premier from 1998 to 2003 and the country’s top economic policymaker, Zhu pushed through sweeping and rapid economic reforms.
His efforts to make state-owned enterprises more efficient and profitable brought him into conflict with conservative factions within the Communist Party and officials at state-run industrial enterprises. His reforms resulted in millions of job losses, but they also helped make China’s economy more dynamic.
China subsequently emerged as a major global economic power. In 2010, it overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.
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