Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang dead at 68

HONG KONG, China

Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, once seen as a reform-minded contender to the country’s top leadership role, died of a sudden heart attack early Friday in Shanghai, state media reported.

He was 68 years old.

Li, who was nominally China’s No. 2 leader until late last year, served as the country’s premier – traditionally in charge of the economy – for a decade from 2013 to March this year under strongman leader Xi Jinping.

During his time in the role, Li navigated the world’s second-largest economy through a challenging period of rising technology and trade tensions with the United States, mounting government debt and unemployment, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his final year in power, the economist by training had been a strong voice warning of challenges to China’s economy amid widespread Covid-19 lockdowns, while backing efforts to boost employment and maintain economic stability.

Li, known to use his English language skills on occasion in appearances outside the mainland, was also seen as representing a different approach to China’s ties with the world, at a time when the country’s relations with the West have grown increasingly strained.

“China and the United States have common interests,” Li said in response to CNN’s question at his annual press conference in March 2021. “The two countries need to put more energy on their common ground and expand converging interests.”

As the news of Li’s death broke Friday morning, social media users circulated a line from Li’s yearly address to China’s rubber stamp parliament in 2022, where he pledged that, “No matter how the international environment may change, China will keep the course of wider openness.”

Li, a highly educated technocrat with degrees in law and economics, was considered friendly to the private sector. He was also seen to have a diverging policy stance from Xi, who has tightened the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s control over the economy.