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EX-CHINESE PRESIDENT JIANG ZENIM DIES AT 96

EX-CHINESE PRESIDENT JIANG ZENIM DIES AT 96
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Faith Nyasuguta

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who led the nation through a decade of rapid economic growth after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 has died aged 96, sparking a wave of nostalgia for the more liberal times he oversaw.

Jiang succumbed to leukaemia and multiple organ failure in his home city of Shanghai just after noon on Wednesday according to Xinhua news agency.

Comrade Jiang Zemin’s death is an incalculable loss to our Party and our military and our people of all ethnic groups,” Xinhua revealed, saying its announcement was with “profound grief”

The death comes at a tumultuous time in China, where authorities are grappling with rare widespread street protests among residents fed up with heavy-handed COVID-19 curbs nearly three years into the pandemic.

The zero-COVID policy is a hallmark of President Xi Jinping, who recently secured a third leadership term that cements his place as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and has taken China through an increasingly authoritarian direction since replacing Jiang’s immediate successor, Hu Jintao.

The nation is also in the midst of a sharp economic slowdown exacerbated by zero-COVID.

Jiang Zemin /Xinhua/

Despite Jiang putting down student protests in Shanghai that were part of the wave of pro-democracy demonstrations culminating in the bloody crackdown at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, some Chinese expressed nostalgia for Jiang’s era as a time of optimism as well as hope for economic liberalisation and political freedom.

Despite Jiang having a fierce temper, he also had an informal and even quirky side, sometimes bursting into song, reciting poems or playing musical instruments – in contrast to his buttoned-up successor Hu, as well as to Xi.

A number of people posted videos and pictures online of Jiang’s meetings with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, including one scene where the pair are all smiles as Jiang conducts a military band for part of the Chinese national anthem.

Several users of China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform described the death of Jiang, who remained influential after finally retiring in 2004, as the end of an era.

I’m very sad, not only for his departure, but also because I really feel that an era is over,” a Henan province-based user wrote.

As if what has happened wasn’t enough, 2022 tells people in a more brutal way that an era is over,” a Beijing Weibo user posted.

Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, tweeted: “Jiang Zemin is a legend.”

Jiang Zemin /IMAGO/

“Now we are ‘too simple, sometimes naive’ as we thought the regime would march towards openness, transparency, and democracy,” he said, referencing a furious dressing-down Jiang gave to Hong Kong reporters in 2000.

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Faith Nyasuguta

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