He only gave up the position as head of the military in 2004, which he also assumed in 1989.

He served as president from 1993 to 2003 but held China's top job, as head of the ruling Communist Party, from 1989 and handed over that role to Hu in 2002. Jiang was plucked from obscurity to head China's ruling Communist Party after the Tiananmen crackdown, but broke the country out of its subsequent diplomatic isolation, mending fences with the United States and overseeing an unprecedented economic boom. Wednesday's letter described 'our beloved Comrade Jiang Zemin' as an outstanding leader of high prestige, a great Marxist, statesman, military strategist and diplomat and a long-tested communist fighter. Xi, meeting Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith shortly after Jiang had died, said China would turn 'our grief into strength', according to state media. The online pages of state media sites including the People's Daily and Xinhua turned to black and white in mourning.

'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. '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.Īlfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, tweeted: 'Jiang Zemin is a legend.' '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. Numerous 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. 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. Many posted videos and pictures online of Jiang's meetings with former U.S. Jiang, though he could have a fierce temper, 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. 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 in an increasingly authoritarian direction since replacing Jiang's immediate successor, Hu Jintao.Ĭhina is also in the midst of a sharp economic slowdown exacerbated by zero-COVID.Įven though Jiang put down student protests in Shanghai that were part of the wave of pro-democracy demonstrations that culminated 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. Jiang's 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.

Plucked from obscurity