Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Dies Of Heart Attack At 68

New Delhi: Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has died after suffering a heart attack at the age of 68, state media reported Friday. A reform-minded bureaucrat, Li was once tipped as the country’s future leader only to be eclipsed by President Xi Jinping, under whom he served as premier for 10 years, AFP reported.

Xinhua news agency said Li had a sudden heart attack on Thursday and passed away in the early hours of Friday in Shanghai, where he had been resting. A career bureaucrat who spoke fluent English, he had voiced support for economic reforms during his time in office.

He showed liberal tendencies in his youth but toed the party line for decades, and 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 province.

The son of a minor party official in eastern China’s poor Anhui province, Li was sent to the countryside to work as a manual labourer during China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution. 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.

But he became more orthodox after joining the ranks of officialdom in the mid-80s, working as a bureaucrat while his former classmates protested in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Li rose to become the party’s top official in Henan, and in Liaoning province in the northeast — both of which saw economic growth — before being promoted to become a deputy to then-premier Wen Jiabao.