Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who died on Wednesday at the age of 96 due to leukemia, will be buried on December 6 after his coffin was transferred Thursday from the city of Shanghai to Beijing, the capital, where he was received by senior government officials, including President Xi Jinping.
His wife, Peng Liyuan, and the 24 members of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were also present at Beijing’s Xijiao Airport, according to CCTV television channel.
A state funeral is also scheduled to take place on Tuesday morning at the Great Hall of the People, which is located in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The ceremony will include three minutes of silence in honor of the former president, who was general secretary of the Communist Party from 1989 to 2002 and president of the country from 1993 to 2003.
The former president, who came to lead the CCP after replacing Zhao Ziyang, was responsible for introducing the concept of a «socialist market economy» during a party congress in 1992 and for overseeing the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macau from the United Kingdom and Portugal in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
