HONG KONG (AP) – Hundreds of mourners lined the streets and laid flowers near former Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s childhood residence yesterday, a day after he died of a heart attack.
Li was born in Hefei in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where he spent most of his childhood and youth.
People came overnight to Li’s former residence at Hongxing Road number 80 with bouquets of chrysanthemums and other flowers. Some bowed in respect, while others cried.
“Everyone is in sorrow,” said Fei Wenzhao, who visited the site on Friday night. She said that the flowers laid out stretched 100 metres.
The road leading to the residence was closed to traffic yesterday to allow people to pay their respects. The line stretched hundreds of metres.
Li, 68, was China’s top economic official for a decade, helping navigate the world’s second-largest economy through challenges such as rising political, economic and military tensions with the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic.
He was an English-speaking economist and had come from a generation of politicians schooled during a time of greater openness to liberal Western ideas.
Introduced to politics during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, he made it into prestigious Peking University, where he studied law and economics, on his own merits rather than through political connections.
