Zhu Rongji, the former Premier of China who played a key role in driving China’s economic reforms and transforming the country into a global economic power, died on Wednesday (August 12, 2026), aged 97.
Political Context
Zhu is widely considered the most effective economic leader in the history of the People’s Republic. File | Photo Credit: AP Zhu was brought to Beijing to help fix the economy. He was appointed Governor of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, and Vice Premier. Zhu helped bring down inflation and protect the economy during the Asian Financial Crisis. Then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, right, welcomes then Vice Prime Minister of China Zhu Rongji to talks in Bonn Chancellor’s office on Feb. File | Photo Credit: AP
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, centre, listens to a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping during the opening session of China’s 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on October 18, 2017. His reward was his appointment to succeed Li as Premier in 1998. In five years, he transformed the economy and shepherded the negotiations leading to China’s entry into the WTO in 2001. In 2002, Zhu visited India as Premier as the guest of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, pushing for closer economic ties between two countries that were then in the early steps of their reforms journeys. 9, 1996.
Zhu passed away in Beijing from illness, the State-run Xinhua news agency said, adding that an obituary issued by the ruling Communist Party “extolled Zhu as an excellent Party member, a time-tested and loyal communist fighter, and an outstanding proletarian revolutionist, statesman and leader of the Party and the State. “In his one term as Premier,” writes the economist Arthur Kroeber in China’s Economy, “he masterminded the reorganisation and downsizing of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs), recapitalisation and reform of the banking system, privatisation of the housing market, and China’s long-delayed entry into the World Trade Organisation. Zhu broke up the SOEs — a painful reform that led to millions losing their jobs and the end of the “iron rice bowl” of state-guaranteed jobs and benefits — and opened up the housing market.
