Obituary | Renowned Chinese economist Li Yining’s death comes as his notions on reform still serve as valuable lessons
- Known as ‘Mr Stock Market’ in China, Li Yining mentored some of the Communist Party’s seniormost members, including Premier Li Keqiang
- With positions in China’s top legislative body and top political advisory body from the late 1980s to 2018, Li Yining was involved in most major economic reforms for three decades
Li Yining, an eminent reform economist and mentor of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, died at the age of 92 on Monday in Beijing, according to Peking University, where he was a long-time professor.
As one of the first in China to introduce the concept of joint-stock company, and to reform state-owned enterprises, Li helped drive the country’s transformation from a planned economy to a market-oriented one. He also contributed to the establishment of China’s stock markets three decades ago, winning him the nickname Li Gufen, or Mr Stock Market.
Li Yining, who laid emphasis on the development of the private economy over the past two decades, is widely acknowledged for his important role in shaping China’s economic policies from the 1980s, as well as for his influence over many students, some of whom later joined the top decision-making circle, including the outgoing premier.
Li Yining’s death came with the world’s second-largest economy at a crossroads – growth has slowed significantly owing to the US trade war and Beijing’s policies during the three-year pandemic, and policymakers are making security and self-reliance major priorities amid deteriorating external relations.
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Premier Li Keqiang visited the professor at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing on Monday morning, hours before he died, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The professor, who had not made a public appearance in years, was said to have been ill and spent the past two years at the hospital.
The premier earned his economics doctorate in the early 1990s under Li Yining. His other students included high-ranking figures in politics and business, such as former vice-president Li Yuanchao; the director of the State Council’s Development Research Center, Lu Hao; and JPMorgan’s former top China banker, Frank Gong.
In a memoir published in a 2008 book called The Spirit of Peking University, Premier Li Keqiang described professor Li Yining as a strict supervisor.
Li Yining designated a longer-than-required list of renowned economists in the country to review his doctoral dissertation, recalled Li Keqiang, who was then rising in the Communist Youth League.
“Because of this list, I made another revision of my paper, and postpone the oral defence by half a year,” he wrote. “From this experience I learned that strict teaching is based on respect for knowledge and the pursuit of truth.”
Economic reforms are as crucial as health to a man … We would regret in the future if we missed the window
In a 2013 interview with People.com.cn, the website of party mouthpiece People’s Daily, the professor gave an “A” when asked by a netizen to score Li Keqiang’s performance in managing China’s economy, just months after he was made premier.
“The new administration under Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang have conducted many reform measures in the past year, including those in two important aspects, namely social stability and economic reforms,” Li Yining said.
“Economic reforms are as crucial as health to a man. I have repeatedly mentioned reforms in several meetings of the past year. Now is the best timing for reforms. We would regret in the future if we missed the window.”
Born in eastern China’s Nanjing city in 1930, Li graduated from Peking University in 1955 and dedicated most of life to teaching and doing research there. He was the founding dean of the Guanghua School of Management.
Li was sent to work on farms in Jiangxi province and suburban Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, before returning to teach at the university from 1976.
He held positions in China’s top legislative body and top political advisory body between the late 1980s and 2018, engaging in most of the major economic reforms during the period.
The economist was named a “pioneer of reform” by the Chinese government in 2018 and awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize of Japan in 2004, among a slew of other honours.
He introduced ideas of prominent Western economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith and wrote many influential books, including Ideas on China’s Economic Reform, as well as The Share-holding System and Modern Market Economy.
And while many experts proposed a price reform for China’s economy in the early stages of the country’s reform and opening-up, Li Yining opposed it and insisted that the reform of ownership should be the top priority.
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“Companies are players of the market. There isn’t a clear line between the functions of the government and enterprises in China’s state-owned companies. The ownership is unclear, and the source of investment is unclear,” he said in a talk to top leadership in 1985.
“What’s crucial now is to reform and clarify ownership, and the joint-stock system is the best way,” he said, according to an oral history published by the Social Sciences Academic Press in 2018.
Throughout his career, Li Yining remained an advocate of economic reforms and support of private companies.
“There must be a large number of private businesses if a country wants to see economic growth. China’s task now is to cultivate a lot of new private companies. Why? Because they can keep up with the times,” Li Yining said in a public speech in 2018.
Listening to Li’s speech … became my spiritual food
Zhao Xijun, a finance professor at Renmin University, said Li Yining’s thoughts are still valuable to China’s development, particularly as the world’s second-largest economy pursues further reform.
“As we can see now, the reform for a joint-stock system is the most basic mechanism of the socialistic market economy, and it was aimed at stimulating the vitality of companies,” he said.
“Today, for the capital market, we’ve just finished the registration-based IPO reform, which also aims at boosting the market. In this sense, the reforms are in the same direction.”
Zhou Xiaoquan, the head of Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau, who finished his postdoctoral under Li Yining, said in a memoir that his mentor’s theories and various books had inspired him throughout his study and work.
Li Yining’s ideas “guided me in my work at commercial banks and financial regulatory departments”, he wrote in a 2010 book, Our Teacher Li Yining, compiled by the People’s Daily Press.
“Listening to Li’s speech at the Guanghua New Year Forum became my spiritual food,” he added.
Additional reporting by Mia Nulimaimaiti
