Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji dies aged 97

BEIJING: Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, whose market reforms helped drive China's extraordinary economic rise, has died from illness at the age of 97, state media reported on Wednesday (Aug 12)."Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji died of illness at the age of 97 in Beijing at 11.06am Wednesday," Xinhua news agency reported. Zhu graduated from Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, joining the Communist Party in 1949, the same year Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China.Sent to the countryside during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, he gradually worked his way up through the ranks after being politically rehabilitated, and was appointed Shanghai mayor in 1987, overseeing its first steps into becoming the global financial hub it is today. Moving to Beijing in 1991 to work f