Former President of the Peoples’ Republic of China Jiang Zemin is dead.State media announced that Jiang died in Shanghai on Wednesday, 30 November, at the age of 96.The former Chinese president Jiang Zemin led his country out of isolation following the crushing of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and supported economic reforms that led to a decade of explosive growth.
Jiang died from leukaemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12.13pm local time, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Jiang ascended to power after the bloody 1989 crackdown on protestors in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which led to China being ostracised internationally.
The event triggered a bitter power struggle at the top of China's Communist Party between hard-line reactionaries and reformers.
