Li Peng

Li Peng was the son of a Communist revolutionary executed by the Kuomintang - after his father's death, Zhou Enlai took him in and raised him. He trained as an engineer in the Soviet Union, returned to work in China's power sector, and rode his political connections through decades of turmoil unscathed. Deng Xiaoping's rise in the late 1970s opened a path upward: vice minister, minister, vice premier, then premier in 1988. The next spring, as demonstrations filled Tiananmen Square, Li declared martial law and coordinated with Deng to send in troops - the subsequent massacre cast a shadow over the rest of his career. He pushed conservative economic policies but lost ground to market-oriented reformers, left the premiership in 1998, and spent five more years chairing the National People's Congress. His family controlled a sprawling power monopoly that the government dismantled after he stepped down.