Former President of China Jiang Zemin dies of Leukemia aged 96 in Shanghai

Former President of China Jiang Zemin has died aged 96 on Wednesday afternoon, according to Chinese state media, which says Zemin died of multiple organ failure while he was undergoing treatment for leukaemia in Shanghai.  

One of the major figures in the contemporary history of China, Jiang Zemin presided over China at a time when the country had opened up to the global community on a vast scale and witnessed high-speed growth.  

Jiang Zemin’s legacy

The late Chinese President oversaw the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 and attracted criticism for a heavy-handed crackdown on Falun Gong, a religious sect in 1999. He had risen to power after the bloody Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, where a brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square led to thousands of causalities, although official accounts from China’s regime report only 300 deaths. The massacre led to China being ostracized internationally.

Following the surprise choice to lead a divided Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, Jiang saw the nation through history-making changes including a revival of market-oriented reforms, and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The late President’s legacy also includes stamping out dissent at home by jailing human rights, labour and pro-democracy activists. Furthermore, the reason behind his government’s decision to ban the Falun Gong spiritual movement was that the movement was a threat to the Party’s monopoly on power.

Jiang stepped down as Communist Party of China's chief in 2002 but remained the head of China’s military for another year. He finally gave up his last official title in 2004 but greatly influenced the rise of the current President of China Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012. Zemin surpassed his predecessor Deng Ziaoping as the longest-lived Chinese President in 2019.