As Premier, He Called Out China's 'Half-Wit' Bankers

Zhu Rongji, the tough-talking former Chinese premier who helped steer China into the modern economic era, has died at 97, reports Reuters. Known for lashing out at "parasites" behind shoddy public works and "half-wit" bankers, Zhu stood out in a political culture more accustomed to cautious, scripted language. His collected speeches, published in 2011, became surprise best-sellers and a reference point for reform-minded officials and intellectuals uneasy about rising conservatism.

A trained engineer who joined the Communist Party in 1949, Zhu rose from Cultural Revolution exile to Shanghai mayor, then vice premier, and premier from 1998 to 2003. He fought inflation, shut or privatized state firms, reined in local finances, opened the housing market, and pushed China into the World Trade Organization in 2002—moves praised as bold reforms but criticized for painful dislocation and policy missteps. The New York Times finds that his policies "set the stage for China's recent problems with excessive debt and its huge trade surpluses," factors in Beijing's current trade wars with the US.