The man toppled as China's Communist Party chief in 1989 for opposing an army crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy protests has died in hospital.
Zhao Ziyang (85) had been in a deep coma since Friday after suffering multiple strokes.
Zhao was placed under house arrest, confined to his Beijing courtyard home, shortly before the army crushed the student-led demonstrations centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 3th-4th, 1989. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed.
The government had stepped up security in Tiananmen as Zhao's health deteriorated, fearing his death could serve as a rallying point for reformists, workers disgruntled about unemployment and farmers disillusioned with a widening gap between rich and poor.
Zhao was last seen in public on May 19th, 1989, when he tearfully begged student protesters to leave the square, saying he had come too late and describing the leadership as old and out of touch. The government declared martial law the next day.
He was accused of trying to split the party and was sacked as general secretary. Jiang Zemin took his place, ruling for more than a decade before handing the post to Hu Jintao in November 2002.