China lowered flags to half-staff across the country on Tuesday to mourn the former premier, Zhu Rongji, the last of a generation of politicians who guided China toward a market-based economy, fueling extraordinary growth but also leaving behind deep inequalities.
The country’s top leaders, including President Xi Jinping, paid their respects to Mr. Zhu, who died on Wednesday at 97, at his official funeral in Beijing, according to state media. Mr. Zhu’s body was cremated.
Deaths of senior leaders are delicate occasions in Chinese politics because they can be used to express veiled criticisms of the current leadership. Mr. Zhu’s funeral has an additional element of sensitivity: Just a day earlier, Beijing celebrated the centenary of the birth of Jiang Zemin, the Communist Party leader whom Mr. Zhu worked under in the 1990s. Mr. Jiang died in 2022.
Mr. Jiang’s commemoration and Mr. Zhu’s funeral, together, have prompted nostalgia for their era, which saw some of China’s most consequential economic change, experts said. That can invite comparisons the Chinese Communist Party likely wants to avoid, they said, between a past that felt more optimistic and purposeful and a present sense of malaise and uncertainty.
Under Mr. Xi’s leadership, the party has invested heavily in certain tech industries, supporting factories that churn out semiconductors and electric cars to feed a global boom. But many ordinary Chinese are feeling squeezed. A long-running property crisis has dragged down the economy, and job prospects for young people have shrunk. The party has also tightened its grip on private companies, adding to the uncertainty facing the entrepreneurs and investors who once drove China’s growth.
Referring to Mr. Xi, Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University who studies China’s political elite, said: “He doesn’t want this moment to raise questions about what he’s doing.”
“He really wants to convince people that what he’s doing is not a brief, stupid detour from this reformist narrative that Jiang and Zhu were doing so well,” Mr. Torigian said.
That was reflected in a speech Mr. Xi gave on Monday commemorating Mr. Jiang, Mr. Torigian said, in which he sought to head off criticism about the direction the country has taken by stressing the continuity between his reign and that of Mr. Jiang’s. He highlighted similarities in their belief in Marxism and the strength of the Communist Party, and positioned himself as a modernizer who was making changes and adapting to the times as Mr. Jiang had done.
In the 40-minute speech, Mr. Xi invoked Mr. Jiang’s legacy of measured market liberalization and praised Mr. Jiang’s decisiveness during crisis. In the way that Mr. Jiang responded to international emergencies including the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the party of today must actively respond to “major tests of high winds and turbulent waves with a tenacious fighting spirit,” he said. Such phrasing is often read as an implicit reference to China’s sometimes-bruising rivalry with the United States over trade, technology and global influence, which has intensified under Mr. Xi.
Many of the rituals to mark former Chinese leaders’ deaths are prescribed in rules developed over decades. Footage of Mr. Zhu’s funeral was not immediately released, but state media said that party officials paid tribute to Mr. Zhu at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing’s west, each bowing three times to show respect. Hu Jintao, the former Chinese leader who has appeared unwell, did not attend and sent a wreath to express his condolences, Xinhua reported.
Mr. Torigian said that Mr. Zhu’s funeral would likely adhere closely to the protocols for that of other premiers like Li Peng and Li Keqiang. Mr. Zhu’s official obituary in the People’s Daily was similarly boilerplate, using language that closely resembled that used for previous premiers, he added.
The death of Li Keqiang, in 2023, prompted an outpouring of grief online as people shared his speeches and photographs of him visiting disaster survivors. They recited Mr. Li’s most famous quotes, like “Power must not be arbitrary.” This time, after Mr. Zhu’s death was announced, there were signs that the authorities were carefully managing public discussion, with searches for his name on Chinese sites producing posts dominated by state media. Still, some used the moment to mourn a more open era in China, and others celebrated his energetic, enthusiastic style and gladiatorial news conferences.
The nostalgia for Mr. Jiang and Mr. Zhu’s era can be overly rosy, said Deng Yuwen, a political commentator who lives in the U.S., who described the economic changes of that era as “ruthless and cruel.”
The changes that pushed the country deeper into the market economy and global trading system also left enduring social and economic problems. State-run factories were shut down or turned over to private ownership, leading to the layoffs of tens of millions of workers. The old guarantees of state-provided benefits were dismantled before China had a social safety net.
Still, the changes at the time gave people a sense of hope and momentum, Mr. Deng said, in contrast to the current era.
“The problem now is that many people are unemployed and laid off, and many people also feel like there is no hope for the future,” he said.
“That’s the connection the authorities and Xi Jinping likely are concerned about people making,” Mr. Deng said, “because comparing that era to now will reflect the difference in people’s feelings.”
Siyi Zhao contributed research.
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