China ex-Premier Li Keqiang, sidelined by Xi Jinping, dies at 68

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - China’s former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, aged 68, just 10 months after retiring from a decade of office during which his star had dimmed. — AFP file pic

BEIJING, Oct 27 — China’s former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, aged 68, just 10 months after retiring from a decade of office during which his star had dimmed.

Once viewed as a top Communist Party leadership contender, Li was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who tightened his grip on power and steered the world’s second-largest economy in a more statist direction.

The elite Peking University-educated economist was seen as a supporter of a more liberal market economy but had to bend to Xi’s preference for more state control.

“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, experienced a sudden heart attack on October 26 and after all-out efforts to revive him failed, died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on October 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported. An obituary will be published later, it said.

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Li was premier and head of China’s cabinet under Xi for a decade until stepping down in March.

“No matter how the international winds and clouds change, China will unswervingly expand its opening up.” Li said at his last public appearance in a press conference in March. “The Yangtze River and the Yellow River will not flow backwards.”

He was born in Anhui province in eastern China, a poor farming area where his father was an official and where he was sent to toil in the fields during the Cultural Revolution.

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He memorably said in 2020 that 600 million people in China earned less than the equivalent of US$140 per month, sparking a wider debate on poverty and income inequality. — Reuters