Li, derided for Tiananmen role, dies at 90
BEIJING — Li Peng, a former hard-line Chinese premier best known for announcing martial law during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended with a bloody crackdown by troops, has died. He was 90.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Li died Monday of an unspecified illness.
Li, a keen political infighter, spent two decades at the pinnacle of power before retiring in 2002. He left behind a legacy of prolonged and broad-based economic growth coupled with authoritarian political controls.
While broadly disliked by the public, he oversaw China’s reemergence from post-tiananmen isolation to rising global diplomatic and economic clout, a development he celebrated in public statements that often were defiantly nationalistic.
One reminder of Li will likely stand for ages: During his final years in power, he pushed through approval for his pet project — the gargantuan $22 billion Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, which forced 1.3 million people to leave homes that were swallowed up by its enormous reservoir.
Li, who became acting premier in November 1987, triumphed over pro-reform party leader Zhao Ziyang in 1989 after the fellow native of Sichuan province was toppled from power for sympathizing with the student protesters at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
On the night of June 3-4, troops invaded the city, killing hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of Beijing residents on their way to ending the student occupation of Tiananmen Square.
Li stepped down as premier in 1998, becoming chairman of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament. He retired from the party’s seven-member ruling Standing Committee in 2002.