Zhu Rongji Dies: The “100 Coffins” — Who Did They Ultimately Bury?

On August 12, Zhu Rongji died in Beijing. An official Xinhua obituary said he was 98. Zhu rose to prominence during what was arguably the most successful period of the Chinese Communist Party’s reform and opening-up era, leaving him with a dual image: a reform-minded modernizer and an iron-fisted leader.

His economic legacy was substantial: reforming state-owned enterprises, overhauling the fiscal tax-sharing system, bringing China into the WTO, and fighting corruption. Some of these reforms brought clear benefits, others caused real pain, and some did both.

Today, we’ll look at several lesser-known but highly important aspects of Zhu Rongji’s career.

00:00 - Introduction
00:42 - Zhu Rongji and the 100 Coffins: When Personal Courage Is Powerless Against Institutional Walls
04:49 - Zhu Rongji and the 1999 WTO Gambit: Winning the Economic Bet, Losing the Institutional One
08:39 - Zhu Rongji’s Knife and the Demise of Township and Village Enterprises

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