Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, just 10 months after stepping down after a decade in office during which his reformist star faded. He was 68 years old, Reuters reports.

Once considered a leading candidate to lead the Communist Party, Li has been ousted in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who has tightened his grip on power and steered the world’s second-largest economy in a more statist direction.

The elite economist was seen as a supporter of a more liberal market economy, but had to bow to Xi Jinping’s preferences for increased state control.

“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, suffered a sudden heart attack on October 26, and after all attempts to resuscitate him failed, he died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on October 27,” state broadcaster CCTV said. .

An obituary will be published later, she said.

Li served as China’s premier and chief of staff under Xi for a decade until he stepped down in March.

“No matter how the international winds and clouds change, China will steadily expand its openness,” Li said in his last public appearance at a press conference in March.

“The Yangtze and Yellow rivers will not flow back,” he added.

In 2020, he sparked a debate about poverty and income inequality by saying that 600 million people in China earned less than $140 a month.

Adam Nie, an independent China political analyst and author, described Li as “a prime minister left without power as China suddenly moved away from reform and openness.”

Li was born in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, a poor agricultural area where his father was a civil servant and where he was sent to work in the fields during the Cultural Revolution.

While studying law at the prestigious Peking University, Li befriended ardent supporters of democracy, some of whom later became contenders for party control.

After leaving school, he joined the Youth Union of the Communist Party, which was then a reformist stepping stone to higher positions.

He progressed to the Youth League, earning a master’s degree in law and then a PhD in economics under Professor Li Yining, a well-known proponent of market reforms.

His political experience as leader of Henan province, a poor and restive rural area in central China, was marred by allegations of repression following the AIDS scandal. He was also party chief in Liaoning, a province struggling to attract investment and become a modern industrial hub.

Li’s patron was Hu Jintao, a former president who belonged to a political faction based on the Youth League.

After Xi took over as party chairman in 2012, he took steps to dissolve the Youth League faction.