Fact File
Age: 69; born in Changsha, central China Position: Premier of China (population: 1.5 billion and rising) Why he's in the news: He's just taken over
If the People's Republic of China has become China Inc, then Zhu Rongji is its chief executive, with vastly more power but a much smaller salary than a CEO in the west. His election as Premier of China on Wednesday saw him chairing a cabinet which was more like the board of a commercial enterprise than an ideological clique.
Just 25 years ago, Zhu was cleaning toilets and feeding pigs in a remote Chinese village, banished from the Communist Party as a rightist by a cadre led by Deng Xiaoping. It was the second time he was purged. The first was in 1957 when he made the mistake of praising reforms in Hungary and Yugoslavia.
What he underwent left scars on his mind and body. "It was not a happy experience, I do not want to talk about it," he said this week. In exile, the tall Hunan native with seagull-wing eyebrows continued to display a stubborn independence. He was a loner, walking in from the fields ahead of others to avoid contact and listening to the radio in the evening to improve his English.
Reports say he was the same at school, where he did not mix with classmates but always had his nose in a newspaper.
Zhu (69) was born in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province. He joined the Communist Party in October 1949. After graduating from the prestigious Qinghua University and enduring his two punishments, he worked his way up in the State Planning Commission. In 1988 he was put in charge of Shanghai, China's most dynamic city.
Never one for socialising at public expense, Zhu decreed that business lunches should not exceed "four dishes and one soup" and told officials not to come to meetings if they had nothing to contribute. He fired a factory executive for wearing an expensive watch he should not have been able to afford.
Zhu managed to keep Shanghai calm during the political disturbances of 1989. The city was paralysed as angry mobs blocked roads and railway lines in protest at the bloodshed in Beijing. He went on television to appeal to the people in terms they rarely heard from a communist leader.
"As mayor, I want to apologise to you for our inability in recent days to enforce the law and ensure the normal livelihood of people. I feel uneasy and guilty."
He also avoided labelling the students as counter-revolutionary. Order was quickly restored. Later he was sent to visit foreign capitals as China sought to improve its sullied image abroad.
His regeneration of Shanghai earned him the admiration of a less successful predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who had unexpectedly emerged as a compromise choice for party leader following the chaos of Tiananmen Square.
Jiang called him to the capital in 1993 to co-ordinate China's economic policy. Zhu succeeded in bringing down inflation, then running at 22 per cent, while avoiding an economic crash.
Known as The Boss, Zhu does not tolerate fools gladly and derides the Chinese academic profession where promotion is given on age rather than merit. During his five years as China's economic controller, he alienated bureaucrats by variously displacing and humiliating them.
"My criticism is too severe sometimes and that is not good," he once said, "but why do you not start doing your work unless your leader flies into a rage?"
He gained a reputation as a hatchet man, cutting patronage from near-bankrupt state enterprises and contributing to widespread unemployment.
However, Zhu, number three in party ranking, can leave it to the number two, Li Peng, to mollify the party rank and file, and the number one, President Jiang Zemin, to play the world statesman and make the big strategic decisions.
In China today, where ideological fervour has given way to market-driven pragmatism, the party relies heavily for its legitimacy on good management. The more results Zhu obtained, the more his star rose. The fact that he had no power base, either civilian or military, meant that President Jiang could elevate him as an ally without nourishing a rival for power.
Zhu, a Peking Opera fan who plays the erhu, a Chinese violin, is becoming more popular with the people who see him as a second Zhou Enlai, the beloved deputy to Chairman Mao. He is perceived as incorruptible and dedicated. He once said he wished he had 100 bullets, "99 for corrupt officials and one for myself".
Married with a son and daughter, Zhu is a reformer but he hates being compared to Mik hail Gorbachev, with good reason. The Soviet leader became a hollow man when officials stopped obeying his edicts. His most daunting challenge is to get the Chinese bureaucracy to do his bidding as he tries to cut it down to size.
At his astonishing first press conference on Thursday, the new Premier painted himself as a patriot rather than a party ideologue. "Whatever is ahead of me, whether landmines or abyss, I will brace myself for it," he declared. "I will devote myself to the people and the country until the last days of my life."
The difference between Zhu and his predecessor, an observer said, is that Li Peng couldn't have said that and, if he had, no one would have believed him.