China Bids Farewell to Zhu Rongji, Reformer With a Complicated Legacy

China held a state funeral on Tuesday for former Premier Zhu Rongji, who died last week at the age of 97. The national flag was lowered as his body was cremated at the Babaoshan cemetery, a resting place for top officials and national heroes.

President Xi Jinping and the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee stood in silence and made three bows before the cremation, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Former President Hu Jintao, who has been absent from recent public events, sent a wreath of condolence.

Security was tight across Beijing, especially around Tiananmen Square and the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, which lie on the route to the crematorium.

Zhu served as vice premier from 1991 to 1998 and as premier from 1998 to 2003. He is credited with curbing runaway inflation, tightening tax and banking systems, and pushing through a sweeping restructuring of the state sector. That overhaul eliminated millions of jobs at unprofitable firms, a cost that still stirs debate.

His reforms also helped pave the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, accelerating the country's integration into the global economy.

Zhu was known for his blunt style. In 1988, before becoming mayor of Shanghai, he told officials: "My defining trait – my guiding principle – is independent thinking. I believe I should say what I truly think."

His outspokenness extended to corruption. In a 2011 collection of his speeches, he coined the term "tofu dregs" for shoddily built flood dykes, which he said were constructed by "parasites." He also labelled erring bankers as "half-wits."

His death prompted an outpouring of mourning on Chinese social media, though a few posts welcomed it. One removed message from a self-described child of laid-off workers said they would "raise a glass tonight." Others defended him, recalling his own 2001 acknowledgment: "I know that quite a considerable number of ordinary people in China like me. But there are also some who hate me to the core. How could one possibly make everyone love him?"

Zhu's political journey was not without hardship. His Communist Party membership was revoked in the late 1950s after an incautious three-minute speech and was not restored for roughly two decades.

The funeral was managed with tight control, a common approach for former leaders whose deaths can stir public emotion. Authorities have long been wary of mourning turning into criticism of current leadership, recalling the 1976 outpouring after Zhou Enlai's death and the 1989 demonstrations following Hu Yaobang's death.

Despite the scrutiny, many citizens expressed nostalgia. One 39-year-old IT worker, who gave only his surname Zhao, said people seemed genuinely moved, almost tearful, and that the death took them back to how they felt 20 years ago when China was rapidly opening up and growing.