Li Keqiang: China’s former deputy leader suffers fatal heart attack

Published

2 years ago

October 27, 2023

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China’s former deputy leader Li Keqiang has died after suffering a heart attack.

The English-speaking economist, 68, had once been considered a contender for the country’s top job, but was passed over in favour of Xi Jinping.

Under the centralising grip of President Xi and his amassing of ever-greater powers, China’s premier and second-in-charge became increasingly sidelined.

While Mr Li, a champion for private business, had promised to improve conditions for entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth, the leadership increased the dominance of state industry and tightened control over tech and other industries.

It left Mr Li and others on the party’s ruling seven-member standing committee with little influence.

He was dropped from the group in October 2022 despite being two years below the informal retirement age of 70.

On the same day, President Xi awarded himself a third five-year term as party leader, ditching a tradition under which his predecessors stepped down after 10 years.

He filled the top party ranks with loyalists, ending the era of consensus leadership and raising the prospect of him holding the top job for life.

The number two slot was filled by Li Qiang, a figure from Mr Xi’s days in provincial government, who lacked his predecessor’s national-level experience.

His departure marked a shift away from the skilled technocrats who have helped steer China’s economy in favour of officials known mainly for their unquestioned loyalty to the president.

Mr Li’s sudden death has shocked many people in the country, with a related hashtag on the Chinese social media platform Weibo attracting more than one billion views in just a few hours.

On posts about Li, the “like” button was turned into a daisy – a common flower for funerals in China, and many users commented “rest in peace”.

Others described his death as a loss and said he worked hard and made a great contribution to China.

Beijing resident Xia Fan, 20, hailed him “a really conscientious and responsible premier”.

“He really accompanied the growth of our generation, that’s how it feels in my heart,” she said.

Designer Chen Hui praised the contribution made by Mr Li.

He said: “If I were to talk about it, it’s impossible to finish it in one day. It’s a pity.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed his condolences, as has Japan’s embassy in China, which highlighted his important role in relations between the two countries.

Born in 1955, Mr Li was 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 on his own merits rather than through political connections.

He held a series of provincial posts and jobs at ministries in Beijing, on a career path meant to prepare future leaders.

He joined the party’s central committee in 2007.

As premier, he guided the world’s second-largest economy through challenges such as tensions with the United States and the COVID pandemic.

World

Trump peace plan: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t step up and guarantee Ukraine’s security

Published

2 hours ago

November 22, 2025

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Trump peace plan: We could all pay if Europe doesn't step up and guarantee Ukraine's security

The Donald Trump peace plan is nothing of the sort. It takes Russian demands and presents them as peace proposals, in what is effectively for Ukraine a surrender ultimatum.

If accepted, it would reward armed aggression. The principle, sacrosanct since the Second World War, for obvious and very good reasons, that even de facto borders cannot be changed by force, will have been trampled on at the behest of the leader of the free world.

The Kremlin will have imposed terms via negotiators on a country it has violated, and whose people its troops have butchered, massacred and raped. It is without doubt the biggest crisis in Trans-Atlantic relations since the war began, if not since the inception of NATO.

The question now is: are Europe’s leaders up to meeting the daunting challenges that will follow. On past form, we cannot be sure.

The plan proposes the following:

• Land seized by Vladimir Putin’s unwarranted and unprovoked invasion would be ceded by Kyiv.

• Territory his forces have fought but failed to take with colossal loss of life will be thrown into the bargain for good measure.

• Ukraine will be barred from NATO, from having long-range weapons, from hosting foreign troops, from allowing foreign diplomatic planes to land, and its military neutered, reduced in size by more than half.

And most worryingly for Western leaders, the plan proposes NATO and Russia negotiate with America acting as mediator.

Lest we forget, America is meant to be the strongest partner in NATO, not an outside arbitrator. In one clause, Mr Trump’s lack of commitment to the Western alliance is laid bare in chilling clarity.

And even for all that, the plan will not bring peace. Mr Putin has made it abundantly clear he wants all of Ukraine.

He has a proven track record of retiring, rallying his forces, then returning for more. Reward a bully as they say, and he will only come back for more. Why wouldn’t he, if he is handed the fortress cities of Donetsk and a clear run over open tank country to Kyiv in a few years?

Since the beginning of Trump’s presidency, Europe has tried to keep the maverick president onside when his true sympathies have repeatedly reverted to Moscow.

It has been a demeaning and sycophantic spectacle, NATO’s secretary general stooping even to calling the US president ‘Daddy’. And it hasn’t worked. It may have made matters worse.

The parade of world leaders trooping through Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, lavishing praise on his Gaza ceasefire plan, only encouraged him to believe he is capable of solving the world’s most complex conflicts with the minimum of effort.

The Gaza plan is mired in deepening difficulty, and it never came near addressing the underlying causes of the war.

Most importantly, principles the West has held inviolable for eight decades cannot be torn up for the sake of a quick and uncertain peace.

With a partner as unreliable, the challenge to Europe cannot be clearer.

In the words of one former Baltic foreign minister: “There is a glaringly obvious message for Europe in the 28-point plan: This is the end of the end.

“We have been told repeatedly and unambiguously that Ukraine’s security, and therefore Europe’s security, will be Europe’s responsibility. And now it is. Entirely.”

If Europe does not step up to the plate and guarantee Ukraine’s security in the face of this American betrayal, we could all pay the consequences.

World

Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump’s plan – they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin

Published

2 hours ago

November 22, 2025

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Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump's plan - they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin

“Terrible”, “weird”, “peculiar” and “baffling” – some of the adjectives being levelled by observers at the Donald Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine.

The 28-point proposal was cooked up between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev without European and Ukrainian involvement.

It effectively dresses up Russian demands as a peace proposal. Demands first made by Russia at the high watermark of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to retreat from much of Ukraine.

Ukraine war latest: Kyiv receives US peace plan

Its proposals are non-starters for Ukrainians.

It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending.

Analysts estimate at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia four more years to take the land it is proposing simply to give them instead.

It proposes more than halving the size of the Ukrainian military and depriving them of some of their most effective long-range weapons.

And it would bar any foreign forces acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is done.

The plan comes at an excruciating time for the Ukrainians.

They are being pounded with devastating drone attacks, killing dozens in the last few nights alone.

They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk.

And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is embroiled in the gravest political crisis since the war began, with key officials facing damaging corruption allegations.

The suspicion is Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president.

Perversely, though, it may help him.

There has been universal condemnation and outrage in Kyiv at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around the wartime Ukrainian leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.

The genesis of this plan is unclear.

Was it born from Donald Trump’s overinflated belief in his peacemaking abilities? His overrated Gaza ceasefire plan attracted lavish praise from world leaders, but now seems mired in deepening difficulty.

The fear is Mr Trump’s team are finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian intransigence for the failure of his diplomacy.

Mr Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting as an arms dealer instead, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the invaded democracy.

If he were to take away military intelligence support too, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that in recent days have killed scores of civilians.

Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan entirely and risk alienating Mr Trump.

They will play for time and hope against all the evidence he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin and put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender instead.