Kerry Brown

Zhu Rongji, who died aged 97, was China’s premier from 1998 to 2003 and a leading architect of its economic modernization. He restructured the inefficient, debt-ridden state sector, oversaw major infrastructure development and secured China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, helping accelerate international trade and growth. The reforms imposed heavy social costs, including layoffs affecting up to 60 million workers and widespread unrest. Known for his blunt manner and fierce opposition to corruption, Zhu remained committed to one-party Communist rule and opposed political liberalization. After retiring, he largely withdrew from public life.

Britain’s relationship with China has shifted from the Conservative government’s “golden era” rhetoric to intense mistrust and calls for decoupling. Kerry Brown argues that Labour is right to resume high-level economic engagement because Britain’s weak growth, Brexit-related trade barriers and productivity problems make Chinese investment, trade and access to technology too valuable to ignore. Rachel Reeves’s visit secured £600m in deals, far less than the agreements associated with Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit, but it marked a useful return to dialogue. The article supports a pragmatic relationship rather than political alignment, noting that economic links may give Britain more influence while disagreements over Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the South China Sea remain.

Li Keqiang, China’s premier from 2013 to March 2023, died at 68 from a heart attack. Regarded as a reform-minded economist, he advocated greater space for the private sector, marketisation, healthcare development and improved infrastructure, but remained a loyal supporter of Xi Jinping after losing out to him in the Communist Party hierarchy. As Xi’s control expanded, Li’s “Likonomics” gave way to “Xiconomics,” with political priorities and party authority taking precedence, while the economy grew at about 6% annually until the pandemic. His earlier provincial careers included controversies over an HIV-contaminated blood scandal in Henan and a nightclub fire in Liaoning, but his technocratic reputation, work ethic and perceived integrity propelled him to the premiership. He retired in 2022 and was succeeded by Li Qiang; he was survived by his wife, Cheng Hong, and their daughter.

Western governments should respond to China with greater self-confidence and self-reflection rather than panic. The UK parliamentary intelligence and security committee, along with US security agencies, portrays China as pursuing a coherent global strategy to become a technological and economic superpower, but the article argues that this assessment overstates Beijing’s strategic capacity. China’s repression and overseas coercion are real concerns, yet internal turmoil, including the removal of Qin Gang and a military purge, suggests a less unified leadership. Western failures in Afghanistan, the handling of post-Soviet Russia and the inconsistent pursuit of democratic values have weakened Western credibility and encouraged Chinese distrust. A more realistic policy would recognize China as a difficult but rational partner and confront the West’s own complacency, incompetence and confused priorities.

Li Peng, China’s premier from 1987 to 1998 and a leading hardliner during the reform era, died aged 90. He became internationally identified with the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown after declaring martial law and ordering the People’s Liberation Army to suppress student demonstrators, although later accounts indicated that Deng Xiaoping and other senior leaders had made the decisive orders. The technocrat maintained influence through the National People’s Congress, supported China’s economic reforms and efforts to join the World Trade Organization, and promoted the controversial Three Gorges Dam. His legacy remained dominated by Tiananmen, alongside criticism of his family’s wealth and political influence.

Roderick MacFarquhar, who died aged 88, was a leading sinologist whose three-volume Origins of the Cultural Revolution transformed understanding of elite Chinese Communist politics and Mao Zedong's return to power. Born in Lahore and educated at Oxford and Harvard, he edited the China Quarterly, worked as a journalist and researcher, and later became a Harvard professor and director of its Fairbank Centre. He also served as a Labour MP from 1974 until the Conservatives' 1979 election victory. His scholarship, teaching, access to sources in China and final book, Mao's Last Revolution, established a lasting influence on the study of modern China. He was survived by his second wife, Dalena Wright, and two children.

Xi Jinping’s China Dream is portrayed less as an expansionist project than as a pragmatic aspiration for the living standards enjoyed in affluent Western cities. The concept also invokes China’s return to past cultural and national prominence after decades of revolution, industrialisation, and modernisation. Western observers often misread these ambitions because they lack familiarity with Chinese history, while historical memory remains central to Chinese identity and political rhetoric. Making that history accessible through the stories of influential leaders, scientists, writers, and rulers can provide a better framework for understanding contemporary China and the aspirations behind its leadership.

David Cameron’s China trade mission is criticized for sending contradictory signals: he previously emphasized human rights and met the Dalai Lama, but now appears focused almost exclusively on trade. The shift risks undermining British credibility with Chinese leaders, especially as China’s evolving civil society and domestic rights debates create opportunities for more nuanced diplomacy. The article also questions Cameron’s advocacy of an EU-China free-trade agreement given Britain’s ambiguous commitment to the EU. Effective commercial progress, it argues, will come through sustained business engagement rather than high-profile political theatre, while Britain needs a more sophisticated strategy for dealing with a changing China.

China's impending Communist Party leadership transition appeared increasingly unstable after Bo Xilai's downfall and Xi Jinping's temporary disappearance. The Hu-Wen era delivered extraordinary economic growth, but also deepened inequality, environmental pressures, energy problems, corruption concerns, and distrust of local officials. The incoming leadership would need to balance continued growth with politically risky reforms, under constraints imposed by existing economic plans, questions about succession legitimacy, and the influence of retired leaders. Although the party remained China's only effective political force and its stability-focused social contract still held, slowing growth or a widening wealth gap could challenge that arrangement.

Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader from the mid-1990s until his death in 2011, presided over a highly isolated and repressive state marked by economic collapse, famine, nuclear ambitions, military provocations and severe human rights abuses. His rise followed the dynastic rule of his father, Kim Il-sung, and his succession to Kim Jong-un was reportedly accelerated by declining health. The obituary places responsibility for North Korea's failures on Kim while noting that many of the country's structural problems originated before his rule and were intensified by the end of Soviet aid, poor harvests and internal power struggles.

Szeto Wah, a prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former legislator, died of cancer aged 79. A teacher and leader of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union, he entered the Legislative Council in 1985 and helped shape debates over Hong Kong's Basic Law and constitutional future. The 1989 Tiananmen crackdown transformed his view of China, leading him to found the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China and organize annual commemorations of the massacre. Barred from returning to mainland China, he continued campaigning for democracy, transparency and human rights, including supporting imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo. His long political struggle contributed to later promises of universal suffrage in Hong Kong.

Lee Huan, a former premier of Taiwan who died aged 93, played a significant role in the Kuomintang's transition from authoritarian one-party rule toward democracy. A key official under President Chiang Ching-kuo, he promoted press freedom, helped bring native Taiwanese into senior party positions, eased restrictions on students as education minister, and supported Lee Teng-hui's succession. He served as premier from 1989 to 1990 before disagreements led to his departure, later remaining a low-profile conservative KMT figure. Taiwan subsequently held competitive elections and experienced a peaceful transfer of power to the Democratic Progressive Party.

Huang Hua, the Chinese diplomat and statesman who died aged 97, played a central role in restoring China’s international relationships. He helped negotiate the early-1970s rapprochement with the United States, became the People’s Republic’s first representative to the United Nations, and later served as foreign minister, state councillor and vice-premier. He negotiated the 1978 friendship accord with Japan, accompanied Deng Xiaoping to the United States, helped formalize US recognition of Beijing over Taiwan, and participated in negotiations with the UK over Hong Kong. His career also included diplomatic postings abroad, involvement in Korean War truce talks, and service during periods of political upheaval including the Cultural Revolution.

Liang Congjie, who died aged 78, is remembered as the founder of China's modern environmental movement and co-founder of Friends of Nature, the country's first authentic environmental NGO. Working within China's politically sensitive civil-society environment, he pursued cooperative campaigns that helped triple Tibetan antelope numbers and contributed to legislation against illegal logging. His activism emerged from concern over the severe environmental costs of post-1978 industrialisation, including polluted cities, degraded water and environmental disasters. Drawing on a distinguished intellectual family background and surviving persecution during the Cultural Revolution, Liang helped make environmental protection a mainstream issue and encouraged later activists, while maintaining a pragmatic relationship with government.

Richard McGregor's book explains how the Chinese Communist Party has retained power by controlling information, the military and an extensive network of party organizations while accommodating private enterprise and a growing capitalist class. The review credits the party's pragmatism, especially under Deng Xiaoping, with helping produce China's economic rise, but highlights endemic corruption, opaque succession rules and the absence of independent regulation. With major leadership changes approaching in 2012, rising social expectations, demographic pressures and environmental and energy challenges could test whether the party can modernize its political system without losing control or returning to repression and catastrophe.

China's rapid economic rise since joining the World Trade Organization has produced social and political pressures that the leadership did not anticipate. Rising demands for rule of law, civil society, decentralization and public participation, along with mass petitions and the imprisonment of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, expose tensions beneath Hu Jintao's vision of a harmonious society. With political reform becoming more urgent and a leadership transition approaching in 2012, the Chinese Communist Party appears poorly prepared and unwilling to manage the country's increasingly complex transition.

James Lilley, a veteran U.S. diplomat and sinologist, died at 81 from complications related to prostate cancer. As ambassador to South Korea during its transition from military rule and to China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, he supported democratic change while preserving diplomatic communication with tense governments. He also negotiated the release of dissident astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, who had taken refuge in the U.S. embassy. The obituary credits Lilley and President George H.W. Bush's commitment to dialogue with helping prevent a lasting rupture in U.S.-China relations and supporting China's subsequent economic opening.

Nien Cheng, a Beijing-born writer and former Shell political adviser, endured house arrest, interrogation and more than six years of solitary confinement during China’s Cultural Revolution. After learning that her daughter Meiping had been murdered by Red Guards, Cheng left China and settled in Washington, where she wrote Life and Death in Shanghai. Published in 1987, the memoir became an acclaimed English-language account of the Cultural Revolution, conveying Cheng’s suffering and resilience while contributing to wider understanding of modern China.

Qian Xuesen, who died aged 98, is portrayed as the father of China’s missile and space programme. Educated at Shanghai Jiaotong University, MIT and Caltech, he made important contributions to US wartime jet-propulsion and atomic-bomb research before being detained during the US Red Scare and allowed to return to China in 1955. He then helped establish China’s Institute of Mechanics, developed the Dongfeng missile programme and contributed to the country’s emergence as a nuclear power. His research also laid foundations for the Shenzhou space programme, while his later life was marked by official recognition and a low public profile.

China's roughly £2 trillion in foreign currency reserves, accumulated through exports and foreign investment, give Beijing significant influence during the global economic crisis. The authors argue that China is increasingly shifting from exporting goods to investing overseas, encouraged by the government to build globally competitive companies and brands. Although concerns remain that state-owned enterprises may serve political as well as commercial purposes, the authors contend that Western countries should welcome Chinese investment for its economic and strategic benefits. They predict a major Chinese investment move and urge the West to establish its response before it appears to have been bought out.