[5] He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, the same year that Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China.

[3] Zhu then began his career as a civil servant in the Northeast China Ministry of Industries, where he was appointed the deputy head of its production planning office.

In 1962, following the famine and industrial collapse caused by the Great Leap Forward,[8] Zhu was pardoned (but not politically rehabilitated), and assigned to work as an engineer at the National Economic Bureau of the State Planning Commission.

[6] During his five-year exile in the countryside Zhu was a manual laborer, raising pigs and cattle, carrying human waste, and planting rice.

[5] Shortly after Mao's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping rose to power and subsequently initiated political reforms leading to the rehabilitation of victims of the Cultural Revolution.

At one point a group of protesters derailed and burnt a train, for which several participants were arrested and executed, but there was otherwise little loss of life, and Zhu was able to retain significant public sympathy throughout the event.

During the visit Zhu gave unscripted speeches in Chinese and English, and was praised by American journalists, politicians, and business leaders for his frankness, openness, energy, and technical background.

[10]: 45  His first issues after arriving in Beijing were to restructure the debts owed by state owned enterprises, and to simplify and streamline the process by which farmers sold their grain to the government.

[16] As the director of the central bank and the vice-premier and head of the State Council Economic and Trade Office, Zhu resolved these issues by limiting monetary supply, eliminating duplicate low-tech industrial projects,[17] devaluing the Chinese currency, cutting interest rates, reforming the tax system,[8] and investing state capital in the transportation, agricultural, and energy sectors.

Zhu's ability to stabilize the economy led to his being named to the CCP Politburo Standing Committee at the 14th Party Congress in 1992, after which he also retained his other posts.

[24]: 134  Zhu frequently argued in favor of indirect economic instruments, for example at the June 1993 Dalian Conference, although he also viewed central government directives as a viable tool.

After his promotion to premier in 1998, Zhu saved the biggest SOEs and allowed thousands of other small and medium-sized firms and factories to go under, assuming that new growth in the private sector could alleviate any surge of unemployment.

This strategy resulted in millions of workers losing their "iron rice bowl" guarantees of cradle-to-grave employment, health care benefits, and pensions.

Zhu challenged managers to base salaries on performance and market competitiveness and made profitability and productivity determining factors in managerial and executive promotions within surviving SOEs.

Although many in the West were skeptical when Deng announced that he would pursue "socialism with Chinese characteristics," Zhu's reforms helped increase China's wealth and power while leaving it under the firm grip of the Communist Party.

Zhu answered that, regarding China's policy toward Chinese unification, he would not comment further and pointed to previous statements by CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin.

He responded to the 1997 Asian financial crisis by dramatically reducing the size of the state bureaucracy,[32] maintaining strict capital controls, and through funding massive infrastructure projects.

[35]: 290  Zhu viewed the meeting as a stress test for leading officials, and encouraged policy debate and discussion with the foreign experts in attendance.

[8] Joining the WTO opened China to increased foreign investment, but also required it to conform to international conventions of trade, intellectual property, and environmental management.

[40] Zhu retired from his position as member of CCP Politburo Standing Committee in November 2002 and premier in March 2003 respectively, when he was replaced by Wen Jiabao.

After his retirement, Zhu withdrew from any obvious involvement in Chinese politics,[41] but he retained ties with Tsinghua University, where he continued to make numerous visits during ceremonies and special events.

[9] In the letter, he encouraged the students at the prestigious business school to visit poor and rural areas of China, in order to better understand the conditions of most Chinese people.

[43] Henry Kissinger wrote that the translation of his books into English represented a significant contribution to Sino-US relations and promoted international understanding of Chinese culture and politics.

[44] One Western biography of Zhu encouraged leaders in other developing countries to study and emulate his reforms, and compared his influence on practical economic theory to that of Keynes.

[42] In March 2022, according to a report published by The Wall Street Journal, Zhu voiced his opposition to current CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping seeking an unprecedented third consecutive term, as it would break the established party system of leadership succession.

[50] She is currently the assistant chief executive for the Bank of China (Hong Kong), and holds a seat in the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

In 2003, he gave a 90-minute address to several thousand delegates in the Great Hall of the People, outlining the "outstanding difficulties and problems" which he expected his successor as premier, Wen Jiabao, would have to face.

Notably, state-owned enterprises were allowed to regrow and keep a critical place in the Chinese economy, and large areas of the banking sector remained unregulated.

[51] Among the international leaders he met and negotiated with as premier, he gained a reputation for intelligence, energy, impatience for incompetence, shrewdness, and as a person who must be respected, even among those who disliked him.

[52] Zhu publicly supported CCP general secretary Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign in which Wang played a major role.