Ren Zhongyi

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Ren Zhongyi (Chinese: 任仲夷; September, 1914— November 15, 2005) was a Chinese politician.

[edit] Biography

Ren was born in Weixian, Hebei province of North China. He was a leader in China's reform period since the late 1970s. He is widely regarded as the bold reformer who led Guangdong to come 'one step ahead' in China's reform.^{[citation needed]} He served as the First Communist Party secretary of Harbin, Heilongjiang (1956-1977), the First Party Secretary of Liaoning province (1977-1980), and the First Party Secretary of Guangdong (1980-1985).

After he retired, Ren Zhongyi remained active in public affairs and was bold and outspoken. He was amongst a few influential people in China who still publicly advocated political reform. Due to the degree of reputation and influence that he had, the Party leaders could only tolerate and to some extent accommodate his views, whilst at the same time using other means (such as sacking the editors who published his views in their magazines) to minimise the effect of his speeches.

Ren Zhongyi was first and foremost a pragmatic politician, instead of being a rigid ideologue attached to the faith of dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and communism. This is in fact true for many outstanding reformers at the time, such as Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Wan Li, Xiang Nan etc.^{[citation needed]}

Preceded by Zeng Shaoshan	Governor of Liaoning 1978	Succeeded by Chen Puru
Preceded by Zeng Shaoshan	CPC Liaoning Committee Secretary 1978 – 1980	Succeeded by Guo Feng
Preceded by Xi Zhongxun	Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Committee 1980 – 1985	Succeeded by Lin Ruo