RIP to Li Keqiang
A man who could smile
In the gerontocratic United States, it feels shocking that a man of *just* 68 could suddenly die of a heart attack, as China’s former premier Li Keqiang did yesterday in Shanghai. But before the widespread use of statins to reduce the prevalence of cardiac arrest, such deaths were much more common. I don’t have too much to say about the man but want to thank him for his smile.
It’s too much to say that Li Keqiang’s smile caused me to write Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts, but the description of him doing so captured in US State Department cables that were released as part of Wikileaks has always been one of my favorite facts in this project.
My first paper from the book, “Juking the Stats,” also begins with this quote. Ostensibly its inclusion is for the list of factors that Li tracked as more reliable than GDP (what would come to be called the Li Keqiang Index), but the beguiling idea of a leader smiling about having to work around data manipulation inside his own organization and everyone knowing that such work arounds were happening revealed a lot about the nature and limits of authoritarian politics and control.
Of course, Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader who so eclipsed Li Keqiang, has pushed for more control and power inside that apparatus than any leader has held for decades. And so there will be / are conspiracies about the Li’s death. And deaths of high ranking leaders in China have been moments of tumult for the regime, so we’ll have to see how things progress, although I expect this to follow the model of Jiang Zemin’s death last year and pass smoothly.
If you’d like more images of this man smiling, here’s a nice gallery.
Rest in Peace.