Li Peng

Li Peng , 1928-, Chinese Communist leader, premier of China (1988-98), b. Chengdu, Sichuan prov., China. Orphaned at age three when his father was executed by the Kuomintang , Li became the adopted son of Zhou Enlai . Educated at the Moscow Power Institute, he became deputy minister (1979) and then minister (1981) of the power industry. After becoming (1982) a member of the Communist Party Central Committee, he rose to the Politburo and the Party Secretariat in 1985, and the standing committee of the Politburo in 1987, when he also became acting premier. He became premier (1988), declared martial law during the Tiananmen Square protests (May, 1989), and was instrumental in the dismissal and arrest (June, 1989) of Zhao Ziyang , the general secretary of the party. More politically orthodox than some of his contemporaries, he favored greater central economic planning and slower economic growth. He was chairman of the National People's Congress (speaker of the legislature) from 1998 to 2003.

Li Peng (1928– ) Chinese communist politician, Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China from 1988. Li Peng was born at Chengdu in Sechuan; his father, a writer, was executed in 1930 by the KUOMINTANG for being a communist. Li Peng was looked after from 1939 by the wife of the veteran leader ZHOU ENLAI. After working as a hydroelectric engineer, he became minister of water resources and electricity. In 1982 he joined the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was appointed to the Politburo in 1985, and to the post of Prime Minister in 1988. Two years into his premiership, he adopted a hard line towards the pro-democracy student movement, and presided over the Tiananmen Square massacre and subsequent mass arrests and executions.

Li Peng (1928– ) Chinese statesman, premier (1988–98). Zhou Enlai adopted him after his father was executed (1930) by the Kuomintang. Li was elected to the politburo in 1985. His support for Deng Xiaoping's policy of economic liberalization, while maintaining the Party's tight grip on politics and society, led him to succeed Zhao Ziyang as premier. In 1989, Li declared martial law during the student protests in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Zhu Rongji succeeded him as premier. See also Jiang Zemin