Chinese papers go black in mourning death of late leader Jiang Zemin

• Jiang passed away in his hometown of Shanghai due to leukemia and multiple organ failure.
• Flags of key government buildings and Chinese embassies abroad have been lowered to half-mast.
• Foreign governments asked not to send delegations or representatives to China to participate in mourning activities.
• Following the death of Jiang Zemin, all newspapers published dark front pages.
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On Thursday, Chinese newspapers published dark front pages, and flags were lowered to half-staff to mourn the death of former president Jiang Zemin, whose passing has sparked a surge of nostalgia for the more open era he ruled.

On Wednesday just after noon, Jiang passed away in his hometown of Shanghai due to leukemia and multiple organ failure. He was 96.

His funeral has yet to be scheduled.

People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, devoted its entire front page to Jiang and included a giant photograph of him wearing his signature “toad” glasses.

“Beloved comrade Jiang Zemin will never be forgotten,” read the headline atop a reprint of the official notice of his passing.

The flags of key government buildings and Chinese embassies abroad were lowered to half mast, and the homepages of e-commerce platforms Taobao and JD.com were also changed to black and white.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, foreign governments, political parties, and “friendly persons” would not be asked to send delegations or representatives to China to participate in the mourning activities.

At one of the largest foreign banks in China, employees have been asked to wear black to meetings with regulators, senior staff has been asked not to be photographed at parties, and marketing activities have been suspended for 10 days, a senior executive at the bank told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Jiang’s passing occurs during a tumultuous period in China when authorities are coping with rare, massive street protests by locals fed up with strict Covid-19 restrictions nearly three years into the pandemic.

China is also embroiled in an increasingly hostile standoff with the United States and its allies over trade and human rights issues, as well as Chinese threats to democratic Taiwan.

Jiang’s jovial side, in which he would occasionally sing for foreign guests and joke around with them, stands in stark contrast to his more rigid successor Hu Jintao and current President Xi Jinping.

A user on WeChat said, accompanied by a candle emoji, “Having someone educated as a leader really is a good thing, RIP.”

Some Chinese social media users have shared images and videos of Jiang speaking or laughing, as well as stories about his 1997 lecture at Harvard University in English, reminiscing about a time when relations between China and the West were more amicable.

The governments of the United States and Japan both conveyed their sympathies.

During his two visits to the United States as president and numerous more talks with U.S. officials, Jiang sought to strengthen ties “while managing our differences – an imperative that continues today”, according to Adrienne Watson, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council.

Even Taiwan, which Jiang threatened with war exercises in the run-up to the island’s first direct presidential election in 1996, tweeted its “best wishes” to Jiang’s family, adding that he “threatens the development of Taiwan’s democratic system and foreign exchanges with force.”

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