BEIJING: Mao Zedong’s former secretary Li Rui, a bold critic of China’s ruling Communist Party who spent a lifetime near the centre of…
BEIJING: Mao Zedong’s former secretary Li Rui, a bold critic of China’s ruling Communist Party who spent a lifetime near the centre of elite politics, died Saturday (Feb 16) at the age of 101, his family said.
Li was admitted to a Beijing hospital for a pulmonary infection last year and died of organ failure in Beijing, his daughter said in an email to AFP.
Li earned a position alongside China’s paramount leader in the mid-1950s, focusing on industrial development.
But then he spoke up on the failures of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policy – which intended to boost China’s economic output but instead unleashed havoc and famine across the country.
