Obituaries Archives - Friends of Socialist China

Xi Jinping mourns passing of Nguyen Phu Trong

On Saturday July 20, Comrade Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President of the People’s Republic of China, accompanied by other senior Chinese leaders, visited the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Beijing to mourn the passing of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the previous day.

The Xinhua News Agency said that Xi praised Trong as a staunch Marxist and a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people, adding that he had devoted himself entirely to the CPV and the country, to the Vietnamese people and to the cause of socialism in Vietnam, and had been deeply respected and admired by the party, military and people of Vietnam.

“The passing of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong has deprived us of a promoter of China-Vietnam relations and a companion for the cause of socialism, and we are deeply saddened,” said Xi, adding that Trong’s outstanding contribution to the relations between the two parties and the two countries and to the cause of the global socialist movement will always be remembered.

The newspaper Nhân Dân further reported that Vietnamese Ambassador to China, Pham Sao Mai expressed gratitude to the Chinese leader for paying respect to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and extending condolences to the party, state, and people of Vietnam. He also thanked the CPC Central Committee for sending condolences to the CPV Central Committee at the earliest, demonstrating the importance the Chinese party, state, people, and the leader personally attach to the relationship between Vietnam and China, as well as the special sentiment he holds for General Secretary Trong.

The Ambassador emphasised that Nguyen Phu Trong was a great intellectual and talent of the Vietnamese revolution; a thinker, a cultural figure, and a theoretical leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam; and an outstanding disciple who continuously studied and followed the ideology, morality, and lifestyle of President Ho Chi Minh, dedicated his entire life to the revolutionary cause of the Vietnamese party and the people, and lived for the country and its people.

During his lifetime, Trong devoted a lot of love and enthusiasm and made many important contributions to the relationship between the two parties and the two countries, the Ambassador stated, stressing that under the attention and direct instructions of the two General Secretaries, the relations between the two parties and the two countries have made gigantic progress over the past 10 years, becoming a community with a shared future which carries strategic significance, and receiving the support of their people.

The other socialist countries have also expressed their deep condolences to their Vietnamese comrades.

The Korean Central News Agency reported that, on July 19, Comrade Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, had written to the CPV Central Committee, stating that “Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, true to the idea and desire of Comrade Ho Chi Minh, devotedly struggled for the strengthening and development of the party and state of Vietnam and the well-being of its people and made great efforts to further develop the friendly and cooperative relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Vietnam in conformity with the spirit of the agreement reached at the Hanoi summit in March 2019.”

Although he passed away, his immortal exploits will be etched in the history of the Vietnamese people’s revolutionary struggle and the history of friendship between the two countries, the message said, and went on to express the belief that the party, government and people of Vietnam would overcome the pain of loss and continue to dynamically advance the socialist cause.

The KPL news agency of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) reported that the country’s leadership said that the loss of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, “signifies the departure of a revolutionary leader who dedicated his life, energy, and wisdom to the noble cause of national liberation, reunification, and the transformative journey of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

“Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong played a pivotal role in strengthening and empowering the Vietnamese party, state, and people. His unwavering commitment to defence, anti-corruption, and the elevation of Vietnam’s standing on the regional and international stage has made him a distinguished hero of the new era.

“The passing of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong is not only a loss for the party, state, and people of Vietnam but also for the Lao party, state, and people. Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, a revolutionary leader in the modern era, carried forward the mission of President Ho Chi Minh and made significant contributions to fostering the exceptional friendship, special unity, and comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Vietnam.”

Cuba declared a period of mourning for the late Vietnamese leader. A message from Army General Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz-Canel sent to Vietnamese President To Lam, said that:

“The passing away of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong is an irreparable loss for Cuba. Cuba will always remember Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong as a great brother who tirelessly promoted the special friendly relationship between the two parties, parliaments, governments, and peoples.”

Cuba’s revolutionary leaders stated that Trong’s life and career are a priceless legacy for future generations. “His contributions regarding the role of the Communist Party, the creative application of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s Thought, and his vision of international relations in the current context are among his outstanding contributions to the building of socialism in Vietnam, which is evidenced in the victories in the Doi Moi [renewal] cause in Vietnam under the wise leadership of the CPV.”

The following articles were orignally published by the Xinhua News Agency and Nhân Dân.

Xi mourns passing of Nguyen Phu Trong

BEIJING, July 20 (Xinhua) — Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, went to the Embassy of Vietnam in China on Saturday to mourn the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

Praising Trong as a staunch Marxist and a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people, Xi said that Trong had devoted himself entirely to the CPV and the country, to the Vietnamese people and to the cause of socialism in Vietnam, and had been deeply respected and admired by the party, military and people of Vietnam.

Xi recalled that over the past decade, he and Trong had maintained close contact and developed a deep camaraderie, and that last year they jointly announced the elevation of bilateral ties to a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, a milestone in bilateral ties.

“The passing of Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong has deprived us of a promoter of China-Vietnam relations and a companion for the cause of socialism, and we are deeply saddened,” said Xi.

He said that Trong’s outstanding contribution to the relations between the two parties and the two countries and to the cause of the global socialist movement will always be remembered.

Xi stressed that the CPC and the Chinese government firmly support the CPV in uniting and leading the Vietnamese people to develop socialism that suits Vietnam’s national conditions.

It is believed that under the strong leadership of the CPV Central Committee, the Vietnamese people will surely be able to turn grief into strength and continue to make greater achievements in the cause of reform, opening up and socialist construction, Xi said.

He said he firmly believes that China and Vietnam will continue to work together to make profound and solid progress in building the China-Vietnam community of a shared future.

Top Chinese leader mourns passing of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong

July 20 (Nhân Dân) — General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and President of China Xi Jinping on July 20 came to the Vietnamese Embassy in Beijing to mourn the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

He was accompanied by Cai Qi, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Chief of the CPC Central Committee’s Office; Wang Yi, Politburo member, Director of the Office of the CPC Central Committee’s Commission for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs; Liu Jianchao, member of the CPC Central Committee and head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee; and many other Chinese officials.

Writing in the condolence book, Xi expressed his deep sympathy over the death of the Vietnamese Party leader.

He told Vietnamese Ambassador Pham Sao Mai that Trong is a consistent Marxist and a great leader of the Vietnamese Party and people.

He devoted his whole life to the Vietnamese Party, State and people, led the nation to carve out major achievements in the socialism building cause, and received support and love from the whole Party, military and people, Xi said, affirming that China always bears in mind the significant contributions by the Vietnamese leader to bolstering the traditional “comrade and fraternal” friendship between the two countries.

According to the top Chinese leader, the CPC Central Committee consistently backs the CPV Central Committee in its development path, as well as supports and believes in the further success of Vietnam’s renewal and socialism building cause. Besides, it stands ready to join hands with Vietnam to make efforts to promote the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and build a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance in a deeper and more substantive manner.

Ambassador Mai expressed gratitude to the Chinese leader for paying respect to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and extending condolences to the Party, State, and people of Vietnam. The ambassador also thanked the CPC Central Committee for sending condolences to the CPC Central Committee at the earliest, demonstrating the importance the Chinese Party, State, people, and the leader personally attach to the relationship between Vietnam and China, as well as the special sentiment he holds for General Secretary Trong.

Mai emphasised that Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong was a great intellectual and talent of the Vietnamese revolution; a thinker, a cultural figure, and a theory leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam; and an outstanding disciple who continuously studied and followed the ideology, morality, and lifestyle of President Ho Chi Minh, dedicated his entire life to the revolutionary cause of the Vietnamese Party and the people, and lived for the country and its people. Therefore, the passing of General Secretary Trong is a great loss to the Party, State, and people of Vietnam.

During he was alive, Trong devoted a lot of love and enthusiasm and made many important contributions to the relationship between the two Parties and the two countries, the diplomat stated, stressing that under the attention and direct instructions of the two General Secretaries, the relations between the two Parties and the two countries has made gigantic progress over the past 10 years, becoming a community with a shared future which carries strategic significance, and receiving the support of their people, he said.

The ambassador affirmed that the Party, State and people of Vietnam always consider developing relations with the their Chinese counterparts a top priority and a strategic choice. He added that he will, together with the Chinese side, thoroughly implement the common perceptions of the two General Secretaries, and is ready to work with the Party, State and people of China to further develop the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a healthy, stable and sustainable manner, in accordance with the “six more” orientation, towards jointly building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance.

The same day, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Zhao Leji, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Huning, and members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi sent wreaths.

The CPC Central Committee, the State Council, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Central Military Commission of the CPC, and several central and Beijing agencies and organisations also sent wreaths in tribute to Party General Secretary Trong.

Earlier on July 19, the CPC Central Committee sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee over the passing of the Vietnamese leader.

CPC Central Committee: Eternal glory to Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong

The day after announcing that Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), required intensive medical treatment, on July 19, it was announced that the revolutionary leader had passed away at 1:38pm local time at the age of 80.

Shortly after, the Xinhua News Agency released the text of the condolences sent by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to their Vietnamese counterpart, deeply mourning Trong’s death. The message said that the CPC and the Chinese people had lost a good comrade, a good brother and a good friend. It described Trong as a staunch Marxist and a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people. Besides his work for the country, he had also made outstanding contributions to the development of the world socialist movement. The message added that Trong was a close comrade and a sincere friend of the CPC and the Chinese people. He inherited and developed the traditional friendship of “comrades plus brothers” between the two parties and two countries and forged a profound friendship with the CPC and Chinese leaders. The CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people would always miss him.

“We believe that the CPV and the Vietnamese people will turn grief into strength, carry on the legacy of Trong, unite and strive to make new and greater achievements in the cause of Doi Moi [reform] and socialist construction,” the message added.

The following article was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday sent condolences to the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and deeply mourned the death of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

The following is the full text of the condolence message:

General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong passed away. The CPC and the Chinese people lost a good comrade, a good brother and a good friend. With immense grief, we extend our deepest condolences and sincerest sympathies to the Central Committee of the CPV, the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese people.

Trong was a staunch Marxist and a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people. He dedicated his entire life to the causes of his party and nation, making outstanding contributions to Vietnam’s Doi Moi (reform), socialist construction, and the development of the world socialist movement.

Trong was a close comrade and a sincere friend of the CPC and the Chinese people. He inherited and developed the traditional friendship of “comrades plus brothers” between the two parties and two countries, and forged a profound friendship with the CPC and Chinese leaders.

Trong and General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping have jointly elevated China-Vietnam relations to a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance and vigorously promoted the continuous development of China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. The CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people will always miss Trong.

We believe that the CPV and the Vietnamese people will turn grief into strength, carry on the legacy of Trong, unite and strive to make new and greater achievements in the cause of Doi Moi and socialist construction.

China and Vietnam are socialist neighbors connected by mountains and rivers and a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and stands ready to work with Vietnam to continuously consolidate political mutual trust, strengthen solidarity and cooperation, and push forward the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future to benefit the two peoples and contribute to regional and world peace and development.

Eternal glory to Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong.

Isabel Crook: an appreciation

We are very pleased to publish this touching and informative tribute to the outstanding communist and lifelong friend of China, Isabel Crook (1915-2023), written by her close friend of many decades, Dr. Jenny Clegg.

Jenny, a retired academic, peace activist and member of our advisory group, provides rich insights in the course of summing up Isabel’s lifelong commitment to the Chinese revolution, her unique and path breaking approach to anthropology, her deep empathy for China’s rural poor, and her enduring yet careful optimism regarding the future of socialist China.

We previously reported on Isabel’s death, including here. Among many other obituaries were those published by British newspapers, The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, and Economist; the New York Times and Canada’s Globe and Mail.

“A rare bridge between the West and China”; “a committed communist”; “a peoples’ diplomat”; “a pioneering anthropologist” – so read the obituaries for Isabel Crook (1915-2023). Indeed, she was all of these in one.

Isabel’s 107 years, almost all spent in China, were to span two world wars, two great revolutions, a socialist transition under a Cold War, all through the twists and turns of Mao’s mass campaigns to Deng’s reform and opening up, with China now led by Xi Jinping stepping onto the world stage.

No mere observer, Isabel’s participation in the New China along with husband David saw them personally suffer under the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Isabel was kept in confinement for three years by Red Guards, in a room on the top floor of a campus building separated from her boys, still only teenagers, and with husband David in prison. Freed from detention in 1972, both were cleared of all charges in 1973 and, along with other foreign experts, received an apology from Premier Zhou Enlai.

Her commitment was again put to the test with the suppression of the Tiananmen protests in 1989 – the Crooks had called on the government not to use force. Yet despite all this Isabel was to remain optimistic as to China’s future under CPC leadership.

To properly appreciate Isabel’s special contribution to understanding China, and the reasons why she never succumbed to disillusionment, requires both a consideration of her life experiences as well as her anthropological work on rural China.

In particular, through many months spent in the rural areas, living among the people gathering materials on village life, Isabel was to develop a particular empathy for Chinese country folk. Her two separate studies of villages undergoing reform, under first a Nationalist, then a Communist-led government, provided deep insight from a comparison between the failure of one and the success of the other.

Early influences: the Rural Reconstruction Movement

Isabel was born in China, the daughter of Canadian missionary educators. Leaving for Canada to study, she was to graduate from the University of Toronto with a bachelors and then a masters degree [1] [2] , returning to China in 1939 aged 24 to do anthropological field research in the western province of Sichuan among the Yi, a slave owning society.

From this remote ‘opium country’, she moved nearer to the wartime capital of Chongqing in 1941 to take part in a year-long ‘action research’ project sponsored by the National Christian Council. Hired by rural reformer, THSun, Isabel was to carry out a survey of a small market town of 1,500 households. With the overwhelming majority of its families living in desperate poverty, Prosperity township was decidedly ill-named.

Joining a small team including two experts on cooperatives, Isabel was introduced to the progressive ideas of the rural reconstruction movement. Founded in 1926 by the influential James Yen, whose work in mass literacy, begun amongst the Chinese labourers in France during World War I, was to gain international acclaim, the movement had a strong following among China’s Christian community and the left wing of the nationalist KMT.

Benjamin Zephaniah – lifelong champion of the oppressed

The celebrated British poet, novelist and campaigner Benjamin Zephaniah passed away on 7 December 2023. Zephaniah was a friend of China and owned a flat in Beijing, spending several months a year there, writing and training in martial arts. His famous novels Refugee Boy, Gangsta Rap and Teacher’s Dead were written in China.

His funeral is being held today, 28 December 2023. We publish below a brief obituary by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez.

One of Britain’s most important and impactful cultural workers breathed his last breath on 7 December 2023, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks previously.

Benjamin Zephaniah was widely known as a poet, author and actor, but also as a tireless and courageous campaigner for justice. He never hesitated to speak his mind; he never put his career before his principles. He was quite unique in his ability to cut through ruling class cultural hegemony – a function of his prodigious talent and his strong roots in the British working class, in particular among oppressed communities.

As a black man from a working class Jamaican background, Zephaniah faced racism all his life, and anti-racism was one of his main areas of focus as an activist. For decades, he stood shoulder to shoulder with oppressed peoples demanding equality – indeed he was among those marching in Southall on 23 April 1979 to defend the local population against the National Front, on which occasion the Metropolitan Police, acting in defence of and in cahoots with the fascists, killed Blair Peach.

Zephaniah well understood that the fundamental purpose of racism is to divide working people. He wrote a few years ago:

“I have always thought that poor white people and poor black people should unite and confront the people who oversee all of our miseries… The biggest fear of all of the mainstream politicians is that we all reach a point where we understand how much we have in common and, instead of turning on ourselves, we turn on them. In poetry and prose I have said that unity is strength, and that we should get to a point where we are not talking about black rights or white rights, Asian rights or rights for migrant workers; we are just talking about our rights.”

He elaborated on this point in his 2018 autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, where he talked about the racism he would sometimes face doing miners’ strike solidarity work in the mid-1980s. In response to some miners in Nottinghamshire shouting derogatory remarks while he was performing, another miner jumped on stage and “delivered a diatribe against racism and urged working-class people to stick together, pointing out that I was the person who in the previous week had sent them a donation of £1,500 (a lot of money in those days) from an African-Caribbean association, and they, the miners, were happy to take the money and feed their kids.”

Reflecting on how miners’ attitudes towards black workers shifted over the course of the strike, Zephaniah noted: “The miners realised they couldn’t win the fight on their own; they needed the solidarity of their wives, black poets, Chinese chefs and Bengali factory workers… Those who were involved in that strike will never forget the picket line battles, the workers’ solidarity, the lessons learned through struggle and the dark forces of police and state that were unleashed upon those workers.”

Although his talent won him a level of acceptance within the mainstream, Zephaniah was not afraid to express revolutionary and anti-imperialist views. Interviewed by the Guardian in the aftermath of the 2017 Grenfell disaster, he stated bluntly: “I go on Question Time and I talk to politicians and get involved, but actually I’d like to just burn the lot of them. The system stinks.”

Elsewhere he discusses the hypocrisy of the bourgeois narrative in relation to democracy and freedom of speech: “Some of us think that, because we have so many TV stations, we have freedom. We don’t. We have the illusion of freedom.”

In 2018, with the US escalating its propaganda war against the People’s Republic of China, Zephaniah talked about his experiences in that country, where he had spent several extended periods writing and training in martial arts.

“Back in the year 2000 I did a tour of clubs and schools in Hong Kong. When the performances were over I was asked if I wanted to go for a day trip into what people called mainland China. How I hate that term. I won’t go on about how the British stole Hong Kong (along with lots of other stuff) and then did a ninety-nine-year deal that was completely unfair to the Chinese. Or how hypocritical the British were in criticising ‘undemocratic’ China while at the same time denying citizens of Chinese origin the right to vote in the British bit of China.”

He continued: “I quickly realised I loved the place. This was the time when everyone started talking about China’s rapid growth, and I saw it happening right in front of me. I’ve never seen a country growing so quickly… I met people who by Western standards were middle class, but one generation ago their families were slum dwellers… After that first independent visit, I would return to China many times. I found it a great place to be creative.”

Interestingly, the following year another prominent British wordsmith of African-Caribbean origin, Akala, wrote in his book Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire:

Over the past few decades, China has pulled at least 500 million people out of poverty (the Communist propagandists at the World Bank actually put the figure at around 800 million), industrialised at a pace faster than any nation before and today stands at the leading edge of many green technologies, and it has managed to do all of this without invading and colonising half the planet. For these and many other reasons – despite obvious and undeniable injustices in China – you would think China would be universally admired by those who claim to believe industrial capitalism to be the holy grail of human achievement. Yet reading about China in the press, I can’t help but feel a tinge of the old ‘yellow peril’ sentiment still lurking beneath the narratives.

Given the extraordinary pressure on anyone in the public eye to conform to the anti-China consensus, it’s impressive and hugely helpful when a courageous few speak the truth like this.

Benjamin Zephaniah was a longstanding friend of socialist Cuba and patron of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, saying: “I am a proud friend of Cuba. We do what we do to support a small nation that is fighting to defend its sovereignty. We do what we do to gain justice for the Miami Five, to help with hurricane relief, and to support Cuban medical teams wherever they go in the world.”

His vision was truly global. He stood with the oppressed in every continent. He was a stalwart of the struggle against apartheid in both South Africa and Palestine. At a 2019 meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which he was a patron, he recalled: “When I was young, there were two things that I really wanted to see: a free South Africa and a free Palestine.”

Visiting the Occupied Territories for the first time in 1988, he wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that Zionism is apartheid.” And three decades later, he was one of very few public figures to loudly defend then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn against absurd charges of antisemitism, saying on Question Time – to rapturous applause from the studio audience – that Corbyn was “the only mainstream politician who’s been arrested for anti-racism… He’s the kind of person that shouldn’t actually be in politics, because politics is so dirty.”

Zephaniah placed a special emphasis on opposing British colonialism and imperialism, and raised his voice in support of Irish freedom (including performing at Troops Out Movement events) and for the return of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Famously, in 2003 he turned down the offer of an OBE:

“‘Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised… Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.’

Benjamin Zephaniah will be sadly missed, but he leaves a body of work and a legacy of campaigning that will continue to inspire new generations in their struggles for a better world.

Comrade Li Keqiang passes away

Li Keqiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and who served as Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China for two terms, from March 2013-March 2023, died of a sudden heart attack at 00.10 on Friday October 27 in Shanghai. He was aged 68.

In an official obituary, Comrade Li was extolled as an excellent CPC member, a time-tested and loyal communist soldier and an outstanding proletarian revolutionary, statesman and leader of the Party and state.

The obituary traced his career from serving as an educated youth on a commune in his native Anhui province from March 1974 and becoming a CPC member in May 1976.

Li Keqiang went on to play leading roles in student and youth work, before taking up leading posts in Henan province, where he put forward the goal of realising the rise of central China. Subsequently, while leading the work in Liaoning province, he championed the revitalisation of the old industrial bases in northeast China.

Surveying his leadership of the country’s economic work during the time he served as Premier, the obituary notes that:

“Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, confronting multiple challenges including fast-changing international situations, the COVID-19 epidemic and downward pressure in the domestic economy, Li followed the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, fully and faithfully applied the new development philosophy on all fronts, worked to create a new pattern of development, promoted high-quality development, and balanced development and security imperatives.”

It adds:

“While serving as the premier, Li also served as head of the State Council’s leading group for revitalising old industrial bases in the northeast and other regions, head of the State Council’s leading group for the development of the western region, head of the country’s leading group for education, science and technology, and head of the country’s leading group for addressing climate change and energy conservation and emission reduction.

“Following the COVID-19 outbreak, Li assumed the post of head of the central leading group for COVID-19 response and helped secure tremendously encouraging achievements in both epidemic response and economic and social development.

“Always bearing China’s realities in mind, Li had been upholding and improving the country’s basic socialist economic systems, and promoting economic reforms.”
It notes that: “To improve the people’s well-being, Li devoted efforts to address prominent issues in employment, education, housing, healthcare, and elderly care.

“In March 2023, Li no longer served as the premier. After retiring from the leadership post, Li continued to firmly uphold the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, care for advancing the cause of the Party and the country, and firmly uphold the Party’s efforts to improve conduct, build integrity, and combat corruption.

“Li’s life was a revolutionary, hard-working and glorious one, and one that was dedicated to wholeheartedly serving the people and the communist cause, says the obituary notice, adding that his death is a great loss to the Party and the state.”

The following article was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

Li Keqiang, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 17th, 18th and 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) central committees and former premier of the State Council, passed away on Friday in Shanghai. He was 68.

Li died of a sudden heart attack at 00:10 on Friday after all-out rescue efforts failed, according to an official obituary notice issued on Friday.

Li was extolled as an excellent CPC member, a time-tested and loyal communist soldier and an outstanding proletarian revolutionist, statesman and leader of the Party and the state.

The obituary notice was jointly issued by the CPC Central Committee, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the State Council and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Born in July 1955, Li was from Dingyuan, east China’s Anhui Province. In March 1974, he went to Dongling Brigade, Damiao Commune, Fengyang County of Anhui as an educated youth.

He became a CPC member in May 1976.

Between November 1976 and March 1978, Li served as the Party chief of Damiao Brigade.

Li went to study at the Department of Law at Peking University between March 1978 and February 1982. He once served as the head of the Students’ Union of the university.

Since February 1982, Li had successively served as secretary of the Peking University Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), a member of the Standing Committee of the CYLC Central Committee, director of the School Department of the CYLC Central Committee and secretary-general of the All-China Students’ Federation, an alternate member of the Secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee, a member of the Secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee and vice chairman of the All-China Youth Federation, and the head of the National Working Committee of the Chinese Young Pioneers.