Zhu Rongji, Architect of China's Market Turn, Dies at 97

Zhu Rongji, the former Chinese premier whose blunt speech and bold reforms dragged the country's economy into the modern era, died on Wednesday at the age of 97.

Known for his unvarnished remarks, Zhu's published speeches from his time in office became bestsellers when they appeared in 2011. In them, he called corrupt officials "parasites" and compared poorly built flood dykes to "tofu dregs," while labeling errant bankers as "half-wits." The four-volume collection, spanning 2,042 pages, offered a rare, unfiltered look at decision-making at the highest levels.

For many reform-minded intellectuals and former officials, the speeches served as an implicit critique of the more cautious, conformist leadership that followed. The volumes highlighted problems that still plagued China as Xi Jinping was about to take power: local government debt, reckless bank lending, inflation, runaway urban growth, and corruption eroding public trust.

Zhu himself warned in early 1998 of "many potential crises that could erupt at any time," citing official corruption, the widening rich-poor gap, and local officials who "act like tyrants."

A graduate of Tsinghua University, Zhu joined the Communist Party in 1949, the year the People's Republic was proclaimed. After being sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, he was rehabilitated and rose through the ranks, becoming Shanghai's mayor in 1987 and guiding the city's early transformation into a global financial hub.

Moving to Beijing in 1991, Zhu helped push through reforms that turned China from a struggling holdout against the collapse of Soviet-style communism into an emerging superpower with enviable growth rates. As premier, he cooled an overheating economy, privatized or shut down state firms, centralized tax collection, and launched housing reforms that sparked a real-estate boom.

His crowning achievement was negotiating China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2002, despite fears that his concessions would cripple domestic industries. Critics later pointed to missteps in grain policy and state enterprise closures that left messes for successors to clean up quietly.

Zhou Ruijin, a former senior editor at the People's Daily, said in 2011 that Zhu's era "nurtured a group of brave risk-takers" and that "there is still potential for big steps in reform."