Xinhua cites a letter from the CPC Central Committee informing the Chinese people of Zemin’s death.
“Our beloved comrade Jiang Zemin died of leukemia and multiple organ failure after all medicines failed,” he said.
The letter states that Zemin was “an outstanding leader of high authority”, “a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, a statesman, a military strategist and a diplomat”.
Zemin was born on August 17, 1926 in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. In 1939, with his parents’ consent, he was adopted by his uncle’s widow. He joined the CCP in 1946 and graduated from the electrical engineering department of Jiaotong University a year later.
In 1955, the future general secretary received an internship in the USSR at the 1st State Automobile Plant named after II Stalin in Moscow. In the 1960s he worked at various enterprises and research institutes in Shanghai and Wuhan, as well as in the international relations department of the former Ministry of Engineering in Beijing.
Since 1980, Zemin has held senior positions in the People’s Republic of China’s state committees on import-export control and foreign investment affairs. During this period, he oversaw the establishment and operation of China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Shenzhen. In 1982, he became the Minister of Electronics Industry of the People’s Republic of China, in the same year he was elected a member of the Central Committee, and in November 1987 a member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee.
Zemin led the CCP in 1989, when, after cracking down on a student demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he was fired and placed under house arrest by General Secretary Zhao Jiang, who supported protesters’ demands for political freedom in the PRC. As he writes “Ukrainian truth”, Zemin led the party at Deng Xiaoping’s suggestion and brought China’s economy to seventh place in the world. In 2002-2005, following the transfer of power in the party and state leadership, the PRC handed over all top party, state and military posts to Hu Jintao.
