BEIJING (AP) — Li Peng, a former hard-line Chinese premier best known for announcing martial law during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, has died. He was 91.
The official Xinhua News Agency said that Li died Monday of an unspecified illness.
Li was a cautious, uninspiring figure but a keen political infighter who spent two decades at the pinnacle of power before retiring in 2002. He leaves behind a legacy of extended and broad-based economic growth coupled with authoritarian political controls.
While broadly disliked by the public, he oversaw China's reemergence from post-Tiananmen isolation into rising global diplomatic and economic clout, a development he celebrated in often defiantly nationalistic public statements.