Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (
Wang, who died on Dec. 24 aged 90, was credited with helping to build China's biggest city into a modern financial center.
He later served as chairman of China's Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, which deals with Taiwan in the absence of formal ties between the two sides.
PHOTO: AP
Wang was born in Anhui Province in 1915 and studied in Shanghai before joining the Communist Party in 1938. He fought against the Japanese in World War II and in the civil war that brought the Communists to power in 1949.
After working in a number of trade and investment roles, Wang became mayor of Shanghai. One of his proteges, Jiang, later followed him as mayor, going on to become Communist Party chief and president.
Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong (
"His contribution was just too great," said Li Si, a retired oil field worker who was in the crowd standing outside.
"Farewell venerable Mr Wang, rest in peace. May the motherland soon be reunited," said a white placard held up by Liao Daming, a middle-aged man who knelt briefly to show his respect.
Hundreds of others, some holding bouquets festooned with expressions of mourning, argued successfully to get past a police cordon keeping out those not formally invited.
During meetings in the late spring with former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
China has not named anyone to replace Wang as its top negotiator in talks with Taiwan.
Wang held a symbolic but extremely important position. His 1993 meeting with then chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), a respected Taiwanese statesman and businessman, was the first high-level official encounter between China and Taiwan since 1949. The two held another round of talks in 1998 but political squabbles had prevented them from meeting since.
Koo died early this year at age 87. His widow, Cecilia Koo (
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
RSS