Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, a leading architect of the country’s economic rise, has died aged 97.
Zhu’s signal accomplishment was steering China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, after laying the groundwork with a host of reforms: overhauling the tax system, commercializing state banks, and smashing the “iron ricebowl” of guaranteed employment by shuttering hundreds of loss-making state enterprises.
Up to 30 million workers lost their jobs. Yet Zhu also privatized the housing stock, instantly creating an urban middle class.
The US assumed that Zhu’s policies were just the start of a promised Chinese economic opening. In fact, they represented the high point of reform; gigantic state enterprises now dominate the economy, and prospects for foreign investors are narrowing.