Nian Guangjiu, China’s ‘hero of reform’ and private business trailblazer hailed by Deng Xiaoping, dies at 84
- The man behind ‘Idiot’s Melon Seeds’, one of the first private entrepreneurs of communist China, is reported to have died on Wednesday
- Once jailed for his ‘capitalism’, Nian bore witness to the non-state sector’s rise under the Communist Party and named among 96 ‘heroes of reform’
Nian Guangjiu, a legendary Chinese entrepreneur who blazed the trail for private business in post-Mao China at great personal risk, has died aged 84.
Nian died of an undisclosed illness on Wednesday in Wuhu, in southeastern Anhui province, Chinese media reports said.
Amid debate over the “capitalist” approach displayed by Nian’s hiring workers for his melon seed shop, Deng said he had protected him from a crackdown to show Beijing’s support for the burgeoning private sector.
Nian was seen as a typical victim of the party’s anger against private business, as the government had earlier confiscated his business and put him in prison.
But he was also an iconic figure in the development of China’s private economy, and a witness to the Communist Party’s commitment to allowing the non-state sector to grow.
