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The sudden death of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has caused a wave of grief and mourning across the country. But for many, it also proves to be a rare opportunity for pent-up explicit discontent with the more sensible leader Xi Jinping and his leadership. has taken over the country.
Li, Xi’s second-in-command for a decade until March this year, died of a sudden attack at the center at the age of 68 last week in Shanghai, according to state media. He was cremated Thursday in Beijing after a brief farewell rite he attended. through senior officials.
His death, just months after his retirement, stunned the Chinese public. Tributes flooded the country’s tightly controlled Internet, as a sea of yellow and white bouquets of flowers placed on makeshift memorials appeared outside the home of His formative years and other places related to His past.
On social media and in handwritten notes interspersed between floral tributes, many others paid tribute to Li for his unfulfilled aspirations rather than his political achievements.
Widely seen as marginalized by Xi — China’s toughest leader in a generation — Li is considered one of the weakest prime ministers in the history of communist China. A different path from the one it has followed for the last decade.
“People are taking this opportunity to express their discontent with Xi Jinping,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “It’s a kind of anger: anger at the existing regime. “
Li, a well-informed pragmatist and reformist, was once considered a candidate for the top job in China but ended up becoming prime minister, a historically important role in the pace of the economy.
Normally, this position carries significant influence in the world’s second-largest economy, however, Li has noted that its political strength was gradually eclipsed by Xi, who has become centralized and distanced himself from the collective leadership of the ruling Communist Party in recent decades.
For many people, Li represents the prospect of an alternative China: less ideologically driven, less authoritarian and more supportive of market reforms, entrepreneurship and relations with the outside world.
Mourners shared Li’s own words as a joke for him, but also as a not-so-subtle grievance against Xi. Among the maxims cited is Li’s promise that China’s reform and opening-up will never stop, just as the “Yellow Party” River and the Yangtze River will not retreat. Another quote from Li has been widely cited as a veiled reminder that a leader’s movements will be judged throughout history: “The heavens watch what other people do. “
Zhang Lun, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in France, said the flood of tributes is a “growing discontent with Xi’s retrograde policies” over the past decade: increasingly strict ideological control, reduction stable non-public political entities, freedoms and incessant political campaigns reminiscent of the era of Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China.
Much of the frustration was also due to Xi’s three years of strict zero-Covid policy, which affected the economy and subjected millions of Chinese to constant testing, quarantines and citywide lockdowns. These harsh restrictions were lifted after large protests erupted across the country.
Adding to this frustration is a constant sense of confusion and depression about the future, driven by China’s economic slowdown and the world’s introspective attitude, and all of those emotions were looking for a way out, Zhang said.
“Although Li was not such a well-rounded old or political figure, he gave other people the opportunity to express their discontent,” said Zhang, who studied with Li at the prestigious Peking University in the late 1970s, after the end of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
“At a time when facts are silenced and false, grandiose and nonsensical statements are prevalent, the basic principles that Li Keqiang adhered to have very valuable things. A demonstration of basic awareness, a few fair words are enough to win the approval of the audience. “It reflects people’s anger, depression and dissatisfaction with reality, all of which are projected onto Li,” he said.
Among his supporters, Li is remembered as a leader who cared about the less privileged and was willing to speak on their behalf, even if it contradicted the party’s most triumphant narrative. On social media, many users thanked Li for publicly acknowledging that six hundred million Chinese (about 40% of the population) still had a monthly income source of just 1,000 yuan ($137), despite official propaganda praising Xi’s victory in eliminating poverty.
“He understood me,” reads one popular comment before disappearing. “I haven’t had a stable job for 4 years. “
Over the past decade, the Chinese people have become accustomed to seeing Li in difficult and tragic times. He was the highest-ranking party official sent to express condolences and shake hands with those affected by natural disasters, whether it was a flood, an earthquake or a pandemic.
When Covid-19 exploded in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in early 2020, it was Li who went there, just about two months before Xi made the same trip, once the virus was largely contained in the city.
Many mourners recalled Li’s taste and empathy. They shared videos capturing their spontaneous interactions with other young people during their many visits, in stark contrast to Xi’s tense public attitude.
In one such video that went viral at the time, and shared again this week, Li memorably gave the impression of not wearing a mask at a university in Yunnan province in May last year, as many local governments tightened zero-Covid restrictions within two months of Shanghai. Campaign. containment.
Bidding farewell to a crowd of students, Li wished them luck in finding their dream project, which was seen by many other young people as a comforting, if indirect, popularity of their fight against record youth unemployment.
Xi, on the other hand, suggested young people abandon their “spoiled” behavior and “eat bitterness,” a Chinese saying describing the hardships endured.
In another old clip shared online this week, a college student asked Li to shake his hand so he could simply “show off” to others — crude web jargon that would have been frowned upon by party propagandists. But Li walked up to the student and asked with a smile, “Have you controlled how to ‘show off’ now?
Wu, the Singapore expert, said Li showed a human aspect that is rarely noticed in Chinese bureaucracy.
“Everyone is like a machine, with no personal feelings or empathy. But it looked different, and different people,” he said.
In China, the death of a top leader is a confusing and complicated moment for the ruling Communist Party. While open grievances against the regime are strictly suppressed and severely punished, public mourning for a popular leader can become a rallying point for the population to express discontent with the rulers.
When Zhou Enlai, Mao’s beloved premier, died in 1976, the grieving public took part in commemorations to channel their discontent with the Cultural Revolution that had sparked a decade of turmoil, violence, and chaos.
More than a decade later, the death of Hu Yaobang, a marginalized reformist leader, sparked a huge mourning that snowballed and led to pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and dozens of Chinese cities.
This movement, led by university students, ended in a bloody military crackdown that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters and ushered in a new era of ideological conformism.
The Communist Party, which Xi has dramatically increased its surveillance power, is back on the offensive behind a recently deceased leader, clipping and shaping tributes online and in real life.
On social media, censors have gotten rid of videos and posts showing Li’s reformist tendencies or any other qualities that might lead to unfavorable comparisons to Xi.
Weibo, a popular microblogging site, blocked searches for “Sadly, It’s Not You,” a love song by Malaysian singer Fish Leong. In recent years, following the death of a world leader, some Chinese users used the breakup song to express a similar sentiment.
Outside Li’s formative years home in Hefei, the provincial capital of Anhui in eastern China, rows of officials stood guard over the grieving crowd, urging others not to delay and examining cards attached to their bouquets, according to witness messages and images on social media. .
The local government also oversaw and maintained a presence at other major places of mourning, including Li’s ancestral home in a remote village in Anhui, and a square in central Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan in central China, where Li was a top official on two occasions. decades ago.
In other cities, bouquets and tickets have sporadically appeared on college campuses, in public squares and in waterfront parks, but some have been removed, according to social media posts.
Li’s body was cremated in Beijing on Thursday after a farewell rite attended by Chinese officials as well as his circle of family and friends.
Censors continued to remove online posts about Li, adding images showing citizens waving goodbye to Li’s hearse as he traveled through the streets of central Beijing and mourners gathering outside the cemetery where Li was buried.
On Weibo, some users tried to evade censorship by posting articles about the former minister on the page of Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who died of Covid in Wuhan in 2020.
“Flags are flying at half-staff across the country, but we still can’t do anything to bow and say goodbye,” one user wrote.
“There are no current issues (about Li). We may not be allowed to search for anything. It’s unbearable,” wrote another.
Zhang, the expert on France, said the Chinese government would be cautious in its handling of public opinion and avoid motions that could simply fuel anger. While Li’s grief is unlikely to spark a mass outcry at this point, it may nonetheless be one of many episodes. paving the way for a protest motion in the future.
“After this brief expression of discontent, the public’s frustration will continue to grow,” Zhang said. “Li’s death has ended any hope of a possible election, and the sense of hopelessness will increase and carry even more uncertainty for the future. “
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