Zhao Ziyang (17 October 1919 – 17 January 2005) was Premier of China from 10 September 1980 to 24 November 1987 (succeeding Hua Guofeng and preceding Li Peng) and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 15 January 1987 to 24 June 1989 (succeeding Hu Yaobang and preceding Jiang Zemin).
Biography[]
Zhao Ziyang was born in Hua County, Henan, China in 1919, and he joined the Communist Youth League of China in 1932 and the Communist Party of China in 1938. He served in the People's Liberation Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, and he supported Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" during the early 1960s. He later came to support moderate political and economic policies, including those supported by Deng Xiaoping and Li Shaoqi. By 1965, he became party secretary of Guangdong province, but he was dismissed from all political positions in 1967 due to his moderate views, which were attacked during the Cultural Revolution. In 1971, his rehabilitation was announced by Zhou Enlai himself, and he was made Deputy Party Chief of Inner Mongolia.
Zhao oversaw the implementation of free market reforms in Sichuan, and he soon became a close ally of Deng Xiaoping. He advocated the privatization of state-owned enterprises, the separation of the party and the state, and general market economic reforms, and he sought to streamline China's bureaucracy and fight against corruption. His sympathy towards the student protesters who took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests led to him losing favor, and he was placed under house arrest, dying of a stroke in Beijing in 2005.