Ex-Chinese leader Jiang dies

BEIJING. – China’s former leader Jiang Zemin, who came to power after the Tiananmen Square protests, has died at 96.

State media said he had died just after 12:00 local time, in Shanghai, yesterday.

Jiang presided over a time when China opened up on a vast scale and saw high-speed growth.

A Chinese Communist Party statement said he died of leukaemia and multiple organ failure.

It added that he was recognised “as an outstanding leader with high prestige” and “a long-tested Communist fighter”.

“Comrade Jiang Zemin was an outstanding leader enjoying high prestige acknowledged by the whole Party, the entire military and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist and diplomat, a long-tested communist fighter, and an outstanding leader of the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” said the statement

State media outlets, including the Global Times and the Xinhua news agency, turned their websites black and white in tribute.

“During the serious political turmoil in China in the spring and summer of 1989, Comrade Jiang Zemin supported and implemented the correct decision of the Party Central Committee to oppose unrest, defend the socialist state power and safeguard the fundamental interests of the people,” state broadcaster

said.. CCTV

Jiang’s successors as president, Hu Jintao and President Xi Jinping, are scheduled to attend his funeral. – Agencies