Li Keqiang alongside Xi Jinping at the 20th Congress
Li Keqiang, former Chinese prime minister, dies suddenly in Shanghai
“600 million Chinese still earn just 1000 RMB (around 140 euros) per month. After Covid-19, people’s livelihood should be our priority”. This is one of his most famous speeches in recent years, in which he had often made a partial counterpoint to the official rhetoric. Calling him a rival of Xi Jinping that’s probably too much, but he was certainly a figure who, rightly or wrongly, had taken on an aura of a certain autonomy with respect to leadership positions. Leadership that in reality he also represented, even if his role appeared partially and progressively emptied over time.
We are talking about Li Keqiang, the former Chinese prime minister died on Friday 27 October shortly after midnight. He was 68 years old. “Sudden heart attack,” says state news agency Xinhua. His death comes unexpectedly and at a particularly delicate moment for the Chinese government, where just a few days ago three key ministers were changed: Defense, Finance and Science and Technology. In the case of the defense, everything suggests that the removal of the general Li Shangfu is due to a criminal investigation against him. All this just three months after the removal of Foreign Minister Qin Gang, amid rumors of an alleged extramarital affair with a television journalist while he was ambassador to the United States.
Li’s death could fuel some rumors, given the recent political upheavals and given that Li was shown the door last year. Li became premier, the second-highest position in China’s state system in 2013, along with the rise of Xi Jinping as general secretary and served for 10 years until March 2023, when he was replaced by Li Qiang.
Li Keqiang and that hand on the shoulder placed by Hu Jintao
But his sentence had already been sentenced in October 2022 retirement. His retirement as prime minister after two terms was obvious (a constraint overcome by Xi but not by the other officials), but many analysts expected him to remain within the Standing Committee, which brings together the seven main figures in the hierarchy of the Communist Party. This was not the case, given that Xi chose a team made up of only loyalists. And Li stepped aside. The image that remained of him in Congress it is the hand placed on his shoulder by Hu Jintao, the former president, as he was escorted out of the Great Hall of the People shortly before Xi Jinping’s final speech.
The son of a local official in the not-so-wealthy province of Anhui, Li made a career out of his involvement in the Communist Youth League, the same “current” as Hu Jintao. A component for which Xi did not leave even a flag at the XX Congress and within the Permanent Committee, also excluding from Politburo (consisting of 24 members, one step below in the Party hierarchy) to Hu Chunhua, former protégé of Hu Jintao and in the past indicated as a potential successor to Xi.
But Xi has not indicated any successors and has just begun his third term. Li never openly challenged him, but in recent years he had taken a more concerned tone about the country’s economic situation and in 2020 he even proposed reviving the so-called “stall economy” in Chinese cities, encountering opposition from the leadership. And, often, the blackout on state media. As happened at the beginning of 2023, when in the last weeks as outgoing prime minister he had made a sort of “farewell” tour of the ministries, renewing calls for reforms and economic openings.
Xi Jinping called to avoid conspiracies and internal tensions
His death will presumably trigger some conspiracy theory, as often happens also due to the opacity of Chinese political dynamics. But it should be kept in mind that Li’s political influence (whose role as internal “opposition” has often been greatly exaggerated) was practically absent and therefore did not represent a threat to Xi. The signals you give state average they would also seem to confirm that the death was sudden and unexpected. On Xinhua only the news appeared, with the announcement of a subsequent publication of an obituary, where the words and lexical choices will be carefully studied to see the degree of honors that will be granted to the former prime minister.
“The immediate task of the Chinese leadership will be to find a obituary that it is pleasing to Li’s family (which is not always easy, especially if the family is unhappy about something), that it fits the regime’s political agenda and that it does not inflame popular sentiment”, underlined Joseph Torigian of the Stanford Hoover History Lab , an expert on the internal dynamics of the Communist Party, and then recalled that the death of figures considered reformists such as former prime ministers Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang (precisely in 1989, the year of Tiananmen Square) caused internal tensions and protests.
Just eleven months ago, Xi Jinping demonstrated that he knows how to navigate another important loss, that one of former president Jiang Zemin, who passed away just a few days after the protests against the zero Covid strategy in several Chinese cities. Now comes a new test, which adds to the need to revive an economy that has shown signs of slowing. And a political scene in which Xi is increasingly theonly leading actor. An asset in good times, a risk in less good times.
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