Jiang Zemin in Beijing

Tony Munro and Yu Lung Tian

BEIJING (Reuters) – Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who led the country for a decade of rapid economic growth after the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, died Wednesday at the age of 96, Chinese state media reported.

Jiang died in his hometown of Shanghai of leukemia and multiple organ failure, the Xinhua news agency reported, delivering a letter to the Chinese people from the Communist Party, parliament, cabinet and military.

“The death of Jiang Zemin is an incalculable loss to our party, our military and all ethnic groups,” the letter said, saying the statement was made with “deep sadness.”

Jiang’s death comes at a turbulent time in China, where authorities are grappling with massive, sporadic street protests by residents unhappy with tough Covid-19 restrictions nearly three years after the pandemic began.

The Covid-zero policy is a hallmark of President Xi Jinping, who recently entered his third term as president, cementing his place as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and guiding the country in an increasingly authoritarian direction since he succeeded his immediate successor, Jiang Hu. Jintao. Jintao.

China is also experiencing a sharp economic downturn exacerbated by the pandemic.

Several users of China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo called the death of Jiang, who remained influential after his retirement in 2004, the end of an era.

Jiang was plucked out of obscurity to lead the Chinese Communist Party after the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but he pulled the country out of the ensuing diplomatic isolation by rebuilding barriers with the United States and overseeing unprecedented economic growth.

He served as president from 1993 to 2003 but served as head of the Communist Party from 1989 and handed over the post to Hu in 2002.

(Reporting by Tony Munro, Yu Lung Tian, ​​Ben Blanchard and Eduardo Baptista)

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