Former Chinese premier Li Keqiang dies at 68

AFP :
Former Chinese premier Li Keqiang, areform-minded bureaucrat once tipped as the country’s future leader only tobe eclipsed by President Xi Jinping, died Friday. He was 68.

He had a heart attack on Thursday and passed away in Shanghai just aftermidnight, state-run news agency Xinhua said.

During his 10-year tenure as premier under Xi, Li cultivated an image as amore modern Communist Party loyalist compared to his stiffer colleagues.

A career bureaucrat who spoke fluent English, he voiced support for economicreforms during his time in office.

The son of a minor party official in eastern China’s poor Anhui province, Liwas sent to the countryside to work as a manual labourer during thetumultuous Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976.

He went on to gain a law degree from Peking University, where classmates sayhe embraced Western and liberal political theory, translating a book on thelaw by a British judge.

But he became more orthodox after joining the ranks of officialdom in the mid-1980s, working as a bureaucrat while his former classmates protested in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Li rose to become the ruling Communist Party’s top official in Henanprovince, and in Liaoning in the northeast — both of which saw economic growth.