Born on July 1, 1955, in the eastern province of Anhui, Li held the position of ruling party secretary...
Digital Desk: Sources report China's former premier Li Keqiang passed away on Friday after suffering a heart attack.
Li Keqiang was 68 years old, as reported he died in Shanghai early this morning.
During the first two five-year administrations of President Xi Jinping, Li held the position of premier. He had developed a reputation as a more contemporary apparatchik (devoted official) than his more orthodox peers throughout his tenure as premier.
Talking about Li Keqiang, he was a career bureaucrat who knew fluent English, and was considered a front-runner to succeed then-Communist Party head Hu Jintao in 2013 but was defeated by Xi. During his presidency, he advocated for economic reforms. His attempts at financial reform, however, were thwarted by Xi's overwhelming control.
Li was born on July 1, 1955, in the eastern province of Anhui, and by 1976, he was the ruling party secretary of a commune there.
Outside of China, he is most known for the Li Keqiang index, a term established by The Economist as an informal measure of China's economic success.
Before being appointed to become a deputy to then-premier Wen Jiabao, Li became the party's senior official in Henan and Liaoning provinces in the northeast, both of which enjoyed economic growth.
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