NEVER MINCED HIS WORDS
The former premier was known to never mince his words.
When a four-volume selection of his speeches came out in 2011, they shocked readers with his description of „tofu dregs“ flood dykes built by „parasites“, and erring bankers labelled as „half-wits“.
His blunt comments from his years in power became best-sellers, finding eager readers in a nation whose then leaders were seen as wary and cautious, prone to often bland public pronouncements.
The reaction to Zhu’s speech selection also reflected deeper anxieties coursing through China as it approached a transition that ushered in Xi Jinping as leader.
Indeed, many of the problems that dogged China’s economy as Xi prepared to take power dominated „The Authentic Speeches of Zhu Rongji“: local government debt and reckless bank loans, inflation and feverish urban growth, and corruption devouring public trust and coffers.
„Our country faces many potential crises that could erupt at any time,“ Zhu said early in 1998.
„Ordinary people are discontent about us in many ways. Especially, there is corruption among officials, the gulf between rich and poor, and the way some local officials act like tyrants.“
Zhou Ruijin, a former senior editor of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, suggested in a 2011 interview that the leaders likely to succeed then-President Hu Jintao and then-Premier Wen Jiabao had much to learn from Zhu.
„The Zhu Rongji era was one of promoting big reforms, and it nurtured a group of brave risk-takers who were at the forefront of pioneering a market economy,“ Zhou, a cheerleader for rapid market reforms in the 1990s, said in an interview with South Breeze Window, a historically pro-reform magazine published in south China.
„Today … there is still potential for big steps in reform.“