Zhu Rongji cremated in Beijing with leaders attending
Crhk · 3 SOURCESabout 3 hours ago2 MIN
Summary
Former premier Zhu Rongji's body was cremated on the morning of August 18 at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, days after he died in the capital on August 12 at age 98.
President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and other senior Chinese leaders attended the farewell ceremony, while former president Hu Jintao sent a wreath in mourning.
Key Points
- The ceremony was held at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, where a black-and-white mourning banner for Zhu Rongji hung above his portrait.
- Zhu's body lay amid flowers and cypress branches, covered with the flag of the Chinese Communist Party during the farewell rites.
- Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi and Han Zheng stood in silence, bowed three times and greeted Zhu's relatives.
- Around 9:30am, senior leaders entered slowly to funeral music, and Hu Jintao sent a wreath to express condolences.
- After a morning flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen, flags were lowered to half-mast there, at Xinhua Gate, the Great Hall of the People, the Foreign Ministry, provincial-level party and government compounds, Hong Kong, Macau, border crossings, ports and Chinese diplomatic missions abroad.
Why It Matters
For Hong Kong readers, the half-mast mourning arrangements in the city show that Zhu's death was marked as a state-level event across the country and in the two special administrative regions.
The attendance of the current top leadership and the formal language in the obituary underline Zhu's enduring political stature within the Chinese party-state system.