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Former vice-president Rong Yiren dies
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-10-27 13:58
Rong Yiren.
[file] | Former Chinese Vice-President Rong Yiren
died of illness in Beijing on Wednesday night. He was 89.
Rong was vice president of the People's Republic of
China from 1993 to 1998. He was also vice chairman of the 5th National Committee
of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top
advisory body, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the 6th and 7th
National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and vice chairman of
the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.
Rong, a promising national capitalist in the 1940s, gained the reputation as
a "red capitalist" shortly after New China was founded in 1949. He was chosen as
one of the 50 most charismatic business personalities in the world by the
American fortnightly magazine Fortune in 1986.
Rong was born to a prestigious family in the country's industrial and
commercial circle. Through the hard work of his father Rong Desheng and uncle
Rong Zongjing, both pioneers of the country's modern industry and commerce, the
Rongs had become a leading family of national capitalism by the 1940s, owning
dozens of textile, machinery, printing and dyeing works and flour mills across
the country. They were thus referred to as "cotton yarn tycoon" and "flour king"
in and out of China.
In 1979, shortly after China launched its reform and opening updrive, then
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping personally put Rong in charge of establishing
corporations which can serve as "a window" for the country's opening up to the
outside world. Thus, there emerged the China International Trust and Investment
Corporation (CITIC), a large transnational corporation with its assets totaling
over 51 billion yuan (6.3 billion US dollars) and affiliated enterprises
exceeding 200. Rong was chairman of the board of CITIC.
Rong was officially praised as an "outstanding representative of the national
industrial and commercial circle in modern China,"a "superb state leader," and a
"great fighter for patriotism and communism."
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