Authored by Heng He via The Epoch Times,
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, the hard-edged reformer who engineered China's rise from planned-economy backwater to global manufacturing giant, died this month at the age of 97.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji poses during a working session at the Europe-Asia summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Sept. 22, 2002. Gerard Cerles/AFP via Getty ImagesHis legacy-tax centralization, mass layoffs, China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a brief, forgotten moment of tolerance toward Falun Gong-now stands as both the foundation of modern China's wealth and a stark reminder of how easily that progress can be reversed.
Zhu's Legacy of Economic ReformAfter the decade-long Cultural Revolution pushed the regime to the brink, then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Deng Xiaoping pivoted China toward market reforms. He relied on pragmatic trial and error rather than a rigid master plan, describing his step-by-step approach as "crossing the river by feeling the stones."
Zhu executed that vision. As vice premier and premier from 1991 to 2003, China's "economic tsar" used iron-fisted reforms to engineer the country's rise, including restructuring fiscal policy, dismantling inefficient state-owned enterprises, and securing China's entry into the WTO.
Zhu was officially credited with advancing China's landmark tax-sharing reform in the 1990s, which centralized much of the country's tax revenue in Beijing. That reform undeniably strengthened the central government.
However, it stripped local governments of steady tax income, forcing them to rely on selling land to fund local budgets. Paired with state ownership of land, this shift created a "land-finance" model that drove housing prices sky-high and triggered today's ongoing property crisis.
It isn't the tax reform alone that is to blame. China's system of state and collective land ownership is what enabled large-scale land sales in the first place.
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji at a meeting in Beijing in July 2011. Feng Li/Getty ImagesThe obituary also praises Zhu for safeguarding Hong Kong's status as a global financial center. Ironically, Hong Kong's diminished standing today stems largely from policies adopted under CCP leader Xi Jinping-making praise for Zhu an implicit rebuke of China's current leadership.
WTO Entry-and Its CostsOne of Zhu's most consequential achievements was leading China to join the WTO in 2001.
To prepare the country for global trade, Zhu aggressively restructured inefficient state-owned enterprises. While this boosted efficiency, it triggered mass layoffs, displacing tens of millions of workers.
Unlike post-Cold War America, China's nascent private sector was too weak to absorb the surge of unemployed labor.
U.S. President Bill Clinton (R) responds to a question as Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji looks on during a joint news conference in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, on April 8, 1999. Tim Sloan/AFP via Getty ImagesThe aggressive restructuring stripped millions of workers of their livelihoods, leaving them with virtually no safety net. While the reforms eventually sparked massive economic growth, the workers who bore the cost were largely left behind without fair compensation.
The Premier Who Called Out Shoddy ConstructionWhen the Yangtze River dikes failed during the 1998 summer floods, Zhu inspected the breach in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, and discovered that the construction had cut corners and used shoddy materials. Furious, he publicly denounced the dam as a "bastard project" and dubbed it a "tofu-dregs project"-comparing the crumbling concrete to the brittle, worthless pulp residue left over from making soy curd.
As long as corruption remains a recurring public concern in China, the term "tofu-dreg project" will likely remain part of the country's political vocabulary and a defining mark of Zhu's legacy.
The Premier Who Listened-Meeting With Falun GongOne episode stands apart from Zhu's economic legacy. In the late 1990s, Zhu and the entire Politburo Standing Committee opposed then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin's decision to suppress Falun Gong, according to insider accounts.
More than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gather on Fuyou Street in Beijing on April 25, 1999. Courtesy of Minghui.orgOn April 25, 1999, roughly 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered peacefully near Zhongnanhai, the CCP's headquarters, in Beijing to petition the authorities for freedom of belief. Earlier in the month, dozens of practitioners in Tianjin had been detained by local police for their faith.
In a bold move for an official, Zhu met directly with representatives, listened to their grievances, and ordered the release of the detained practitioners, along with an assurance that practitioners would have a lawful environment in which to pursue their practice.
The spiritual discipline was introduced to the Chinese public in 1992 and gained widespread popularity, attracting at least 70 million practitioners by the late 1990s.
At an internal leadership meeting the following day, according to insider accounts, Zhu suggested that suppression would harm the country's image and that the regime should leave Falun Gong practitioners alone. Jiang, afraid of the practice's growing popularity, responded that doing so would bring down the Party.
Months later, Jiang launched a sweeping, nationwide campaign against Falun Gong-initiating a persecution that continues today.
Reform Can Be Reversed OvernightZhu's death cast an unexpected shadow over Xi's plans to commemorate Jiang with unusually high political honors, an effort intended to elevate Jiang alongside the CCP's founding generation. Instead of highlighting Jiang's legacy, Zhu's passing reminded the public that the reforms of China's most prosperous era owed far more to Zhu.
It was Zhu who was behind Deng and the CCP in launching the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 1990-now a global financial powerhouse that hosts major state-owned enterprise listings.
Although Zhu was the official most responsible for driving China's reform era, Xi's policies have now largely dismantled that work. That contrast reveals the ultimate lesson of Zhu's legacy: under totalitarian rule, no amount of reform is secure-it can all be undone overnight.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 23:25Federal regulators have cleared a blood test aimed at detecting signs of Alzheimer's disease.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared a blood test known as Elecsys pTau-217 for people aged at least 55 who have shown signs of, or have been complaining of, cognitive decline, Roche announced on Aug. 24.
The test, which can be used by primary care doctors and specialists, detects a biomarker called plasma phosphorylated tau 217. In a study that ran from 2004 to 2025 and was published in JAMA, researchers found that higher levels of the biomarker were associated with an increased risk of progression to cognitive impairment.
As Zachary Stieber reports via The Epoch Times, the FDA has previously approved several other tests for Alzheimer's, beginning in 2025 with a test from Fujirebio Diagnostics that measures both pTau217 and another protein. Roche said its test is the first to measure a single biomarker.
"Elecsys pTau217 has the potential to transform how Alzheimer's is assessed across primary and specialty care," Dan Malarek, president and CEO of Roche Diagnostics North America, said in a statement.
"This kind of innovation can help bring diagnostic evaluation closer to patients and give clinicians greater confidence in determining the right step in their care."
Alzheimer's is a brain disorder that destroys a person's memory and thinking skills over time. People with the disease gradually become unable to perform tasks such as eating and walking. Many people begin experiencing symptoms such as memory difficulties between the ages of 60 and 70.
The Alzheimer's Association and other groups have welcomed the tests as a less invasive option than other methods, such as testing of cerebrospinal fluid.
"Each FDA clearance gives clinicians another validated option to work with when evaluating patients showing signs of cognitive impairment," Maria C. Carrillo, the association's chief science officer and medical affairs lead, said in a statement.
"That's real progress for a field that, for decades, had far too few tools to offer."
Dr. Carole Ho, executive vice president and president of Lilly Neuroscience, which helped develop the test, said in a statement that "for millions of families navigating the uncertainty of Alzheimer's disease, a timely diagnosis is the first and most critical step toward meaningful care."
Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics said they will carry the new test.
Once ordered by a doctor, patients can have their blood drawn for the test in a doctor's office, a Labcorp service center, or a Quest center.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 23:00Authored by Jake Scott via FEE,
On a Sunday night in late July, Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and China's Xi Jinping spoke for more than an hour. It was cordial and faintly triumphant, with the two governments announcing their intention to accelerate a long-stalled China-Mercosur trade agreement. Alongside this, there are plans to deepen cooperation on satellites and critical-minerals processing, and waive short-stay visa requirements.
Image Credit: Custom image by FEEThis marks a serious change for Brazil. For years, it was Brasília that had spearheaded all resistance to exactly this sort of deal within the Mercosur bloc. The reversal was as sudden as it was shocking, taking only a fortnight to emerge, following a new American tariff taking effect and the Brazilian president deciding that the cost of alignment with the United States had, at last, exceeded its benefits.
Confronted with a United States that has moved from partner to antagonist, Brazil sees itself as neither retaliating in kind nor capitulating; it is hedging, deliberately, on several fronts at once. For many observers, this is a rational reaction to the emergence of an increasingly multipolar world. But just under a century ago, this practice had a name: "pragmatic equidistance." It was the way Brazil described its international strategy of balancing relationships with competing powers without committing to either.
The ongoing and escalating international trade war fueled by retaliatory tariffs has been the main catalyst here. In late July, a 25% tariff covering a broad range of Brazilian goods came into effect; per the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry's reckoning, nearly half of all Brazilian exports to the United States are now subject to some form of additional duty. Alongside the general tariffs, a "forced-labor" levy of 12.5% was introduced by the US to enforce bans on importing goods made with forced labor abroad, which in many ways represents a globalization of America's existing ban on Chinese goods using forced labor.
It is estimated that the hardest-hit goods carry a combined tariff of 37.5%.
President Lula's response has been to reframe the introduction of these tariffs as Washington's error rather than Brazil's, calling the tariffs a "strategic mistake" in the Washington Post, and warning that the tariffs will drive Brazilian firms to replace their American suppliers with partners elsewhere.
The rhetoric is only part of it, though: Brazil has filed for consultations with the World Trade Organization to challenge both the broad tariffs and the forced-labor levy as breaches of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The effectiveness of these consultations is up for debate given the WTO's general paralysis, but what matters more is what this reveals for Brazil's international-relations strategy: it is pragmatic equidistance on display. Brazil has filed the complaint with the WTO, while continuing negotiations with the US.
Meanwhile, Brazil is attempting to hedge its bets by engaging with the wider global economy. This month, ApexBrasil (the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency) has launched a R$105 million ($20.5 million) program to support just shy of 2,500 exporters across 57 industries in their search for new markets, including the EU, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.
Simultaneously, the Mercosur bloc is actively pursuing parallel deals with India, Japan, and Canada, with Brazil at the heart of this strategy. Lula has enacted the Mercosur-Singapore agreement, the bloc's first with a Southeast Asian economy, under which Brazilian exports will progressively enter duty-free.
What is also interesting is what the imposition of these tariffs has meant for Lula at home. Many Brazilians read the tariff regime as a direct attempt to influence the Brazilian elections that are due to take place in October 2026, which in turn has allowed Lula to cast himself as a defender of Brazil's sovereignty against foreign interference. This strategy has borne fruit: Lula's polling has remained steady in the mid-40s, while Flávio Bolsonaro-the only other major contender-has seen his popularity steadily decline since April 2026, meaning Lula's lead has slowly widened.
It may not have helped Bolsonaro that his presidential bid launch saw him flanked by Javier Milei and Benjamin Netenyahu, with few Brazilian politicians in the room. International campaigning is increasingly common, but in a climate skeptical of foreign interference, that move may have been more than a little tone-deaf, especially given the increasingly strained relations between Argentina and Brazil.
Not only this, but when the US sent election officials to verify the integrity of Brazil's electoral system, their visas were simply denied. For a public that is heavily resistant to the sense of being managed from abroad, this was a message that landed exactly in the way it was needed to.
Most notable, however, is Brazil's attempt to sidestep all of this via improved trade relations between the Mercosur bloc and China. Of course, Mercosur is a customs union, and so all members must negotiate jointly-which is why a proposed China agreement has been formally proposed and "under study" since around 2017. In this, Brazil had been the brake, while Uruguay had spent years advocating for the trade agreement, and pursuing its own China talks whilst the other Mercosur members stalled.
In January 2023, Lula traveled to Montevideo to argue that Mercosur should secure an EU deal first, and only then negotiate with China. With this deal signed in Asunción in January 2026-after 26 years of negotiations-and coming into effect in Brazil in April, the roadblock had been cleared. At least, on Brasília's end: Argentina's President Javier Milei is ideologically opposed to China, and will likely veto any deal pursued by Mercosur. China is already Brazil's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade valued at $188 billion, and a deal could meet Brazil's other strategic interests, such as widening agricultural access.
Regardless, Brazil has been hedging its international trade relations with careful maneuvering, and in the long run, this may be the smart move.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 22:35