Zhu Rongji, who as China's premier pushed through a dizzying array of changes that helped ignite China's explosive economic boom, has died at 97.

The former premier steered China toward Western market principles and championed its entry into the World Trade Organization.

He negotiated China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and pushed through reforms that breathed new life into China’s state-directed economy.

Zhu Rongji helped push reforms that transformed China from a beleaguered hold-out against the collapse of Soviet-style Communism in the early 1990s to an emerging superpower.

Zhu Rongji, who as China’s premier pushed through reforms at state-owned companies that cost tens of millions of workers their jobs, and who helped engineer China’s entry into the…