Hush-hush funeral for former Chinese premiere Li. Here's why

Li Keqiang's body was put to rest in Beijing after the former Chinese Premier passed away on October 27 from a heart attack. But the funeral was apparently muted. Experts are of the opinion that the funeral was restrained because China wished to suppress the emotions from running too high and keep behind curtains people who were dismayed by Xi by openly mourning Li.

While speaking to VOA, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, Yaqiu Wang, said, "People are showing their frustration and discontent toward Xi by publicly mourning Li’s passing."

"The Chinese government definitely wants to prevent people from expressing such emotion publicly," he added.

Li was a former economist and pro-reform leader who served as the premier for over a decade before stepping down in March this year. There was a complete hush-hush around the funeral ceremonies in China. Chinese flag flew at half mast at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to mourn Li.

Apart from the flag being flown at half-mast and the cremation done in Beijing, no other information was made available to the public.

Jeff Wasserstrom, a historian of modern China at the University of California, Irvine, told VOA, "This fits into a pattern of not giving out much information, if we think about how little information has been given out about top officials who have been stripped of their power."

China has a long history of censoring information online. Recently, the country was also seen to hide its stringent zero-Covid policies by cracking down on social media platforms.

An expert reportedly said that Li's funeral is nothing but China's same old tradition of keeping the funerals of top leaders low-profile. "What has been done in the case of Li Keqiang is almost the same as what has been done for former Chinese Premier Li Peng, who passed away in 2019," Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told VOA by phone.

(With inputs from agencies)