How long did Li Keqiang serve as China's premier? Career explored as economist and politician dies aged 68

Li Keqiang, the Chinese economist and politician, who served as the premier of the People's Republic of China for about 10 years, from 2013 to 2023, recently died at the age of 68. According to BBC, he died 10 minutes past midnight on October 27, 2023, despite "all-out" efforts to revive him. This came after he suffered a heart attack while he was in Shanghai on Thursday, the day before his death.

Li came to power promising to improve the lot of private companies and restrict the reach of the state but was overtaken by President Xi Jinping. The trained economist held the second-highest-ranked position in China. However, he was isolated in recent years amongst China's top leadership because of him being the only incumbent top official who didn't belong to the President's loyalists group, as per BBC.

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Li Keqiang, the former Chinese premier, was the secretary of the Chinese Communist Youth League at Peking University

Li Keqiang was born in 1995 in Hefei, Anhui. As per Reuters, following Mao's Cultural Revolution, which allegedly took the lives of millions of people, he was accepted into Peking University Law soon after it re-opened. There, he got his Ph.D. in economics and was elected to become the secretary of the Chinese Communist Youth League at Peking University in 1982.

He later became the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CCYL and was elected as the league's first secretary in 1993. Keqiang then served as the governor of Henan and the province's party secretary from 1998 to 2004.

He had been the premier of the country since 2013 and his term ended in March 2023. He was also the second-ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party from 2012 to 2022, according to his obituary.

The ex-premier is best known outside of China for the Li Keqiang index, a term coined by The Economist. It is an informal measurement of China's economic progress.

On Friday, October 27, 2023, at approximately 12:10 am local time, Li Keqiang passed away after he had a heart attack on Thursday while visiting Shanghai, as per the New York Times

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The contrast between Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping's political ideals

According to BBC, Ian Chong, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie China think tank said:

"Li's death means the loss of a prominent moderating voice within the senior levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with no one apparently being able to take over the mantle. This probably means even less restraint on Mr Xi's exercise of power and authority."

Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping had many contradicting ideas about politics. As premier, Keqiang spoke highly about giving markets a greater role in the economy. He had promised a leveled playing field for private companies, as per the New York Times. He said the companies would have access to bank loans, land, and other resources, much like state-owned firms.

However, Li's efforts had limited success because he and his allies had lost much of their influence. As per BBC, President Xi is China's most dominant leader and believes in promoting a circle of loyalists, who would defend a central role for state-owned enterprises. Xi also demanded tight supervision of the economy by the ruling Communist Party, which emphasizes security and ideology instead of growth.

Premier Li believed in making policies to encourage entrepreneurship and technology innovation, especially among young people, as per The New York Times. The publication reported that he was an economist who became known for his honesty because he publicly acknowledged China's economic problems as a means of finding solutions.

After Li Keqiang's term as premier ended on March 11, 2023, Li Qiang, Xi's close ally, succeeded him.