Zhu Rongji

Zhu Rongji (Chinese: 朱镕基; IPA: [ʈʂú ɻʊ̌ŋ.tɕí]; 23 October 1928 – 12 August 2026) was a Chinese politician who served as the premier of China from 1998 to 2003 under CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin. He was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1992 to 2002.

Born in Changsha, Hunan, Zhu joined the CCP in 1949 and graduated from Tsinghua University in electrical engineering before joining the State Planning Commission. During the 1957 Hundred Flowers Campaign, he criticized official economic planning; he was consequently purged in the Anti-Rightist Campaign, expelled from the party, and demoted to teach maths and science at a cadre school. During the Cultural Revolution, he was an English teacher at a May Seventh Cadre School in Xiangyang from 1970 to 1975. Rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping in 1978, Zhu rose through the State Economic Commission before serving as mayor of Shanghai (1988–1991) and Shanghai CCP secretary (1989–1991), where he earned a reputation as a pragmatic economic reformer.

Zhu served as a vice premier from 1991 to 1998, becoming first-ranked vice premier in 1993, concurrently as governor of the People’s Bank of China from 1993 to 1995. He played a leading role in the 1994 tax-sharing reform and measures to stabilize the overheated economy. As premier, Zhu oversaw China’s response to the Asian financial crisis, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.

An architect of China’s 1990s economic transition, Zhu was regarded as a capable technocrat, although his policies were criticized for contributing to mass worker layoffs and local land finance. He retired from public life in 2003 and died in Beijing in 2026 at the age of 97.