Zhu Rongji, who drove China's 1990s economic reforms, has died at 97
Zhu Rongji, who drove China's 1990s economic reforms, has died at 97
- August 12, 2026
- Dorothy Solinger, political science, comments on NPR
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Zhu's most controversial legacy by far remains restructuring China's bloated state-owned enterprises. He axed smaller, inefficient companies, leaving an estimated 30 million state workers suddenly jobless. … "The central government decided that the laid-off worker problem could just be ignored and forgotten," said Dorothy Solinger, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Irvine, who studies migrant labor in China.
Listen in, courtesy of NPR.
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