Photo/Illutration Li Keqiang attends a signing ceremony with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 14, 2016. (Pool Photo via AP)

The Asahi Shimbun established a newsgathering base in China’s northeastern city of Shenyang in spring 2006.

Sent there as a resident reporter, I had many occasions to be in close contact with Li Keqiang, who was the Chinese Communist Party’s secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Committee, the top political office in the province.

I remember him as someone who spoke quickly and was quite articulate.

He was an elite rising star of the party, and everybody expected him to eventually head the organization. VIPs from around the world visited Shenyang, practically competing for his attention in what was dubbed the “Pilgrimage to Li Keqiang.”

Also, around that time, Li developed his own method of analysis of the Chinese economy. It came to be known as the “Li Keqiang Index.”

One thing that left an indelible impression on me was his view of the wartime history between Japan and China, an issue that has bedeviled bilateral ties.

Li asserted, “The perspective we need to have is to not just see the Japanese as evil, but to think about how humanity could have been capable of committing such atrocities.”

He could have made a more “neutral” comment but chose instead to articulate his own view of history. His attitude made me look forward to a bright new era in China.

I remember hoping vaguely then, “If someone like him is going to be the Chinese premier, China will open up to the rest of the world, and the future may be bright for Japan-China relations.”

In hindsight, I was naively optimistic.

Li never rose to the party’s top leadership post. The economic policy he tried to pursue as premier failed to get off the ground, and he began to look pathetically listless. In any age, the No. 2 always gets a raw deal.

The abrupt news of his demise on Oct. 27 shocked the world, giving rise to all sorts of speculation.

But perhaps that’s just par for the course in a country where the foreign minister and the defense minister disappear suddenly. Thinking of China’s indescribable murkiness now, I cannot stop feeling a sense of deep desolation.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 28

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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