CHINA’S former premier Li Keqiang has suddenly died less than a year after stepping down from overseeing the world’s second-largest economy.

Li suffered a sudden heart attack on Thursday (Oct 26) and passed away in the early hours of Friday in Shanghai after all rescue efforts failed, state broadcaster China Central Television reported. He was 68.

After a decade as the ruling Communist Party’s second-most powerful man, Li retired in March and was replaced by Li Qiang. He had also served as a member of the ruling Communist Party’s top decision-making Politburo Standing Committee.

Li was born in Anhui province in central China in July 1955 to a father who was a county-level government official. During the Cultural Revolution he was sent to work in the province’s countryside, spending several years doing manual labour while becoming his unit’s party branch secretary.

Li’s premiership

Li ascended the political ladder via challenging stints as party chief in the provinces of Liaoning and Henan. In Henan, he oversaw strong growth, but also presided over a blood donation scandal that infected rural residents with HIV.

After losing out to Xi Jinping for the role as president, Li became premier and carved out a policy platform based on cutting red tape and taxes on business. He also championed “new style urbanisation”, which encouraged city growth to be linked with the provision of employment and public services.

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But Li’s role diminished once Xi moved key economic policy decisions to a series of party committees led by himself and his trusted economic aide, Liu He. Li, in turn, spent much of his time responding to crises and ensuring that officials followed the Chinese leader’s decisions.

Earlier in his tenure, Li cracked down on extravagant spending to rein in an economy dependent on investment. His policies were dubbed Likonomics by Barclays economists in a report that generalized his approach as “no stimulus, deleveraging and structural reform”.

Li also used electricity use, rail cargo volume and bank loans as proxies for growth during his years in Liaoning province. Bloomberg Intelligence has developed a “Li Keqiang Index” in a weighted average of the data to gauge China’s economy. BLOOMBERG