Beijing —
Zhu Rongji, the steely former Chinese premier whose bold economic reforms propelled the country’s rise as a global powerhouse, has died. He was 97.
Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003, died of illness in Beijing on Wednesday morning, according to state news agency Xinhua. He is survived by his wife and their two children.
Known as China’s “economic czar,” Zhu led the country to embrace market liberalization and globalization, steering its transition from a centrally planned backwater to a more open and market-friendly economy.
In some ways his death marks the end of a more economically optimistic era for many Chinese who witnessed their country’s sweeping transformation during its reformist years. Those reforms led to huge reduction in poverty, an exploding middle class and a scramble by foreign companies to access the lucrative Chinese market.
