Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (left) and former US President Bill Clinton. [AFP]
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (left) and former US President Bill Clinton. [AFP]

Zhu Rongji, the former premier of China's State Council who steered the country's economic reforms and its accession to the World Trade Organization, died Wednesday at 97.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the State Council and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference announced in an obituary that Zhu died at 11:06 a.m. in Beijing after receiving treatment for an illness.

Born in October 1928 in Changsha, Hunan Province, Zhu graduated from Tsinghua University with a degree in electrical engineering. He went on to serve as mayor and party secretary of Shanghai, vice premier of the State Council and governor of the People's Bank of China before serving as premier from 1998 to 2003.

His tenure as premier coincided with China's full-scale transition from a planned economy to a "socialist market economy."

Zhu pushed through the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the cleanup of non-performing loans in the financial sector, streamlining of the central government and an anti-corruption drive. His demanding and exacting work style during those sweeping reforms earned him the nickname "Zhu Fengzi."

During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, he shifted away from austerity-focused fiscal and monetary policy toward an expansionary fiscal policy and stable monetary policy to stimulate domestic demand. Even as currencies across the region tumbled, he held firm against devaluing the yuan and pressed ahead with efforts to boost exports and attract foreign investment.

Bloomberg described Zhu as someone who "made a deep impression on foreign leaders with his fluent English and sharp sense of humor."


quq@heraldcorp.com