C05510609

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(Phonetic: joo!
(2612/6954/ 1015)

Member, Standing Committee, Politburo,
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (since
19 October 1992} Vice Premier (since
ipril 1997)

Addressed as: Mr. Vice Premier

The appointment of Zhu Rongji. renowned as |
an ardent supporter of Deng Xiaoping’s economic
reforms. to the Politburo Standing Committee
suggests that Deng was able to overcome the
opposition to Zhu‘s selection of more hardline party
eiders. The promotion also makes Zhu the leading
candidate to succeed Premier Li Peng should he
give up the aremiership at the end of his term in
March 1993,

Zhu wiil almost certainly take over the economic portfolio. Officially responsible as a
vice premier for overseeing state-run industries. since arriving in Beijing he has toured the
agencies under his control and visited several provinces with high concentrations of state-
controlled enterprises to familiarize himself with his duties. In July 1991 he was given
additional responsibilities as head of a leading group charged with resolving the problem of
debt chains—-one of China's most intractable economic difficulties—and as director of a
newly established State Council Production Office, His authority was further enhanced in

carly 1992 when he was placed in charge of a new Economic and Trade Office that absorbed
the Production Ofer]

083

“hu received a vice-premiership largely as a result of his efforts as mavor of Shanghai (1988
- March 199)), using Deng’s economic reform program to revitalize the city’s sluggish
economy. Zhu was highly successful at attracting foreign investors for Shanghai businesses.
His andling local student demonstrations in June 1989 also earned him
high marks. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Zhu delivered a skillfully crafted
speech that appeased Shanghai's students while admonishing them for demonstrating: he
succeeded in clearing the streets without violence. Zhu then moved quickly to refocus the
city’s allention on economic issues.

]

He meets

Trequently with foreign busmeéssmen and is noted for his efforts to cut redtape that entangles
! Vv io 7. . wy w

During
i Visit to the United States in July 1990. Zhu met with academics. corporate leaders. and
2overnment and Congressional officials

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Zhu’s track record in fact tends to contradict his Western reputation as an ardent - :
advocate of reform. He has expressed little support for more radical reform policies: for

example Zhu is not enthusiastic about
sharcholding systems. During a recent visit to a northeastern industrial area. Zhu proposed

f2w Innovative ideas for revitalizing moribund state-run enterprises: he also failed to push
the role of foreign investment, stressing instead the need to do more with less.

Career and Personal Data

Zhu was born on ] October 1928. A student activist. he joined the CCP in 1949. He
graduated from Qinghua University in 1951 with a degree in electrical engineering. He then
worked in the Fuel and Power Bureau. Genera) Affairs Bureau. and Mechanica) Bureau of
the State Planning Commission. In 1958 Zhu was labeled a rightist and spent the next 20
years in an obscure position in the economic planning bureaucracy. After his rehabilitation
in 1979, he was transferred to the State Economic Commission. He was appointed director
of the SEC’s Technology Transformation Bureau in 1982 and served as vice minister of the
SEE i : t i He held a Conciirréent
assignment as dean of Qinghua University. Zhu was elected an alternate member of the

Central Committee in 1987 and became secretary of the Sha LCCP committee in 1989.
He is now a full Central Committee member.

Zhu has visited several European nations. He enjoys reading Chinese literature.
watching Peking opera. and playing the Auyin. a two-stringed instrument. He and his wife
play tennis. The couple has a son. who js a graduate student in meteorology at the University
of Wisconsin |

19 October 1992

ite