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. His death was not announced until Tuesday evening.
One reminder of Li will likely stand for ages to come: 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. 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.
In his later years, Li rarely appeared in public, and was usually seen only at official gatherings aimed at displaying unity, such as the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army in 2007.As his profile waned, he reportedly began lobbying older colleagues to support his children’s political ambitions. One of his two sons, Li Xiaopeng, was the governor of Shanxi province before becoming transport minister in 2016.
He shrugged off questions of nepotism, saying he was one of many war orphans cared for by Chou and his wife, Deng Yingchao. But he did say that “their ideals and moral influence had a profound influence on my upbringing.”
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