<\/p>\n
Former Chinese premier Li Keqiang, a reform-minded bureaucrat once tipped as the country\u2019s future leader only to be eclipsed by President Xi Jinping, died on Friday. He was 68.<\/p>\n
He had a heart attack on Thursday and passed away in Shanghai just after midnight, state-run news agency Xinhua<\/em> said.<\/p>\n Interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar said he was \u201cdeeply saddened and shocked\u201d to learn about Li\u2019s passing and called him a \u201cgreat friend of Pakistan\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe fondly remember his visit to Pakistan in 2013. Our thoughts and sympathies are with late premier Li, his family and with the Chinese nation at this hour of grief,\u201d he said on a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani remembered Li as a \u201cstatesman\u201d, adding that he contributed to \u201cstrengthening\u201d ties between Pakistan and China.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the then-foreign secretary, I organised his visit to Pakistan in May 2013. My thoughts are with premier Li, his family and the Chinese people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During his 10-year tenure as premier under Xi, Li cultivated an image as a more modern Communist Party loyalist compared to his stiffer colleagues.<\/p>\n A career bureaucrat who spoke fluent English, he voiced support for economic reforms during his time in office.<\/p>\n The son of a minor party official in eastern China\u2019s poor Anhui province, Li was sent to the countryside to work as a manual labourer during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976.<\/p>\n He went on to gain a law degree from Peking University, where classmates say he embraced Western and liberal political theory, translating a book on the law by a British judge.<\/p>\n But he became more orthodox after joining the ranks of officialdom in the mid-1980s, working as a bureaucrat while his former classmates protested in Tiananmen Square in 1989.<\/p>\n Li rose to become the ruling Communist Party\u2019s top official in Henan province, and in Liaoning in the northeast \u2014 both of which saw economic growth.<\/p>\n But his reputation was damaged by his handling of an HIV\/AIDS epidemic stemming from a tainted blood donation programme while he was party boss in Henan.<\/p>\n Later, Li was promoted to become a deputy to then-premier Wen Jiabao. Praised for helping to steer the country through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed, his time in office saw a dramatic shift in power in China from the more consensus-based rule associated with former leader Hu Jintao and his predecessors, to the more concentrated power of Xi.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople always debated whether (China\u2019s) institutions would \u2026 determine the outcomes, as opposed to just raw power,\u201d Victor Shih, an expert on China\u2019s elite politics at the University of California San Diego, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd of course, recent events show that raw power still matters more.\u201d<\/p>\n Li\u2019s tenure also saw China\u2019s economy begin to slow from the dizzying heights experienced in the 1990s and 2000s.<\/p>\n \u201cHe always struck me as very committed to China\u2019s development, intellectually curious, with a highly sophisticated understanding of the Chinese economy,\u201d Bert Hofman, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cEvents derailed some of his agenda in the past 10 years, but his thinking is still very much relevant today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHis attempts at tackling China\u2019s deep economic challenges were curtailed by the overwhelming authority of Xi, with whom he was once seen as a rival for the country\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n\u2018Derailed agenda\u2019<\/h2>\n