Former President Jiang Zemin passed away
due to leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12:13 p.m. on Nov.
30, 2022, at the age of 96, Xinhua News Agency said.
Jiang was General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) between 1989 and 2002 and President of the People’s Republic of China between 1993 and 2003.
He oversaw the handovers of both Hong Kong and Macau and establishment of the respective Special Administrative Regions.
Jiang Zemin visited Macau in December 1999 for the handover ceremonies and preside over the inauguration of the new SAR top officials. He returned to the city one year later for the first anniversary of the Macau SAR.
The announcement was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the State Council of the PRC, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and the Central Military Commissions of the CPC and the PRC.
It was announced in a letter addressing the whole Party, the entire military and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups.
The letter says they proclaim “with profound grief to the whole Party, the entire military and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups that our beloved Comrade Jiang Zemin died of leukemia and multiple organ failure after all medical treatments had failed.”
The letter adds that the former State President and CPC General Secretary “was a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist and diplomat, a long-tested communist fighter, and an outstanding leader of the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. He was the core of the CPC’s third generation of central collective leadership and the principal founder of the Theory of Three Represents.”
Jiang took over as CPC General Secretary in June 1989 in the aftermath of the June 4 incident.
By the time he retired as president in 2003, China was a member of the World Trade Organization and Beijing had secured the 2008 Olympics.
He is survived by his wife Wang Yeping and two sons.
