Zhu Rongji: China censors public mourning as it holds former premier’s funeral

Flags at government sites are flying at half-mast and security vehicles are parked in the heart of Beijing, as China mourns former Premier Zhu Rongji.

Zhu died of an illness last week at 97, and will be cremated at a funeral in Beijing on Tuesday. There has not been footage from the ceremony, which is being kept low-key.

Zhu, who served as China’s premier from 1998 to 2003, is remembered as one of the country’s most important economic reformers.

While hailing the late premier as a “loyal” party member, the Chinese state is also wary that public mourning for his era of reform can easily turn into veiled criticisms of the current government, under Xi Jinping.

After his death, state media has described Zhu as an “outstanding member of the Chinese Communist Party” and “time-tested and loyal Communist fighter”.

But on the internet, posts about Zhu have been contained and censored – like an essay written by economist Zhao Jian, which remembered Zhu’s era as a time when people were “properly poor” but saw a clear future ahead.

“There were no smartphones then, no short-form videos and no screens filled by the purveyors of anxiety,” he wrote.

“The sky was blue, life moved slowly and people could say what they really thought.”

His comments were removed from WeChat the day after publication.

The party has long been fearful of public reaction to deaths of senior officials and public figures.

The deaths of former premier Zhou Enlai in 1976 and Hu Yaobang, a former CCP general secretary, in 1989, prompted widespread outpourings of grief that morphed into protests.

Zhu died just days before the Communist Party leadership gathered to commemorate the birth centenary of President Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022.

The death of Zhu and Jiang, two such prominent leaders from the same era, has prompted a wave of nostalgia among many Chinese people for a time when the country looked as if it was going in a different direction – when it appeared that it may open to the world and allow more freedom for its people.