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He later cultivated a close relationship with Jiang Zemin, a former schoolmate from Shanghai who rose to become China’s president and who died in 2022.

Then, during the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras, the idea took hold that, if you gave people a better living, they'd have less motivation to act corruptly.

Photographs of Li were shared on Weibo by Xinhua news agency, including those of him with Xi, Hu and former leader Jiang Zemin.

The song went viral around the death of former President Jiang Zemin in November last year before being censored.

Absent this year will be Jiang Zemin, a former party chief who influenced Chinese politics until his death last year.