Answering questions from reporters
The author of this article is Tao Jingzhou, Tao Jingzhou is a 77-level student of the Law Department of Peking University, and Li Keqiang is not only a classmate but also a fellow villager in Anhui.
Silent and unobtrusive in class
It's been more than 30 years, and when I first met Li Keqiang, I can't remember what he was like. But at that time, everyone was a child, and Keqiang also came from the countryside, which was inconspicuous, and no one thought that he would have today's results. He's three years older than me, and he just feels a little bit more mature than us.
Keqiang has always been a taciturn person in his class. When we were in a big class, there were more than 80 people in a class sitting together, and the seats were not fixed, and he often sat in the back, and his class performance was not very active and inconspicuous.
The boys' dormitory in our class is on the 3rd floor of Building 37, I live in room 315, and he lives in room 309 or 307, which is a bit vague. At that time, there were seven people living in a dormitory, Li Keqiang lived in the lower bunk, and he didn't have any items, he usually always carried a satchel, and he was dressed very plainly, with a military uniform and a Zhongshan suit, which were the best two clothes. At that time, everyone was very poor, and in the four years of college, he only had two pants, and there were only one pair of pants among our classmates.
I remember that there were two shared desks in the dormitory, and things were very messy, and everyone was not particular about them. The dormitory door is not closed, and whoever has a loud voice can hear it all shouting. I didn't hear much of Li Keqiang's shouting. Sometimes we go to play basketball together, and Li Keqiang plays averagely, he is relatively thin, loves to read, and is more bookish. At that time, Peking University turned off the lights at night, and some classmates said that Li Keqiang was reading under the street lamp, and he may have really read it, but this is not the norm. It was another classmate who hid in the quilt to read after the lights went out, and burned a big hole in the quilt, which was very "sensational", but it was not Li Keqiang.
At that time, everyone had no money, and they couldn't eat enough, so they drank more soup. The school issues scholarships or bursaries according to family circumstances, divided into several grades, the minimum is 5 yuan, the most is 15 yuan, I have a monthly stipend of 10 yuan, Li Keqiang may not have it. His father was a minor local official, not the poorest.
Our head teacher, Wang Deyi (who later served as the president of the All-China Women's Federation), felt that Li Keqiang was very capable and recommended him to become the secretary of the Youth League branch of the law department. At that time, Peking University students didn't care about student cadres, and they didn't notice what he did when he was the secretary of the Youth League branch, but remembered that he organized many activities.
Li Keqiang is a warm-hearted person. When he was doing student work in the student union, Jiang Ming'an in our class took a fancy to a girl from the Chinese department, but he was too ashamed to say it to others, so he asked Li Keqiang to come forward and say it. He went, and came back a few days later and said, "Oh, the female students in the Chinese department are very open, and say, 'Since Jiang Ming'an has taken a fancy to me, you let Jiang Ming'an come over to talk, why are you here?' This is one of the few matchmakers that Li Keqiang has done, but he didn't succeed.
Peking University had a strong democratic atmosphere at that time, and what impressed me more was to participate in the election of deputies to the People's Congress of Haidian District, organize debates in the school, and Li Keqiang also participated as a student union cadre, and he was much more active than me in this regard.
In his spare time, Li Keqiang spends more time reading, and he reads more professional books. In our class, there were student reading clubs and discussion groups, and there were many issues to be debated, and I was impressed by the relationship between law and morality. Premier Wen emphasized the role of morality and asked entrepreneurs to be ethical; Comparatively speaking, those of us who study law will place more emphasis on the role of law. When we were in school, we kept talking about the relationship between law and morality, between law and policy.
He loves economic law
Mr. Gong Xiangrui's constitutional class is a compulsory course for us. Mr. Gong is a master of constitutional science who studied in the UK, and Jiang Ming'an and I admire him very much, but he admires Li Keqiang very much. During his time in school, he published a book "Comparative Constitutional Law and Administrative Law", we are all assistants, and we have made a lot of efforts, and the assistant he mentioned in the preface, the first is Li Keqiang, which shows that he admires Keqiang very much.
When I was a sophomore, I took an elective course called Economic Law, and I felt that Li Keqiang became interested in economics from that time. I think he must have had an idea of paying more attention to the market economy, and the idea of the market economy at that time was very different from now, although he advocated a market economy at that time, it was difficult to say what a market economy was, and it was very rare to have this kind of thinking.
In December 1980, many students in our class interned at the Nanjing Court. I was in the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court, and Keqiang was in a district court, mainly as a juror, but sometimes as a defender. We once represented a criminal case in which four people committed a crime together, the court appointed four defenders, Li Keqiang was the chief defender, he carefully reviewed the file, did a lot of preparation, I remember the day before the trial he organized a few of us to discuss late, this may be his only court defense experience. In court, he spoke slowly, with a Hefei accent, and his expression was very serious.
Group photo at the South Gate of Peking University From left: Wang Shaoguang, Chen Xingliang, Li Keqiang, Tao Jingzhou
Shortly after Rong Yiren founded the China International Trust Company, he hired a doctor of law from Harvard University as a consultant, who also taught us international law at Peking University, and he took more than 10 students to CITIC for internships, including Li Keqiang and me. We interned at CITIC for more than a month, and went to Chongwenmen, where CITIC headquarters is located, every day to look at materials. At that time, the level of international law of Peking University could be said to be the first in the country.
The impact of this internship on us was subtle, and from the case materials of CITIC, we learned how to use the law to regulate investment behavior and how to use contracts to restrain corporate behavior. This is also very helpful for us to grasp China's future foreign investment policy, and I remember that not long after, China promulgated its first foreign investment law, the Law on Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures.
We also went to Tianjin Port for a field trip, which was required for the elective course "Maritime Law", which was taught by foreign teachers and taught in English, and was only available to those who were good at English. Because of the practical problems involved in the handling of marine accidents, more than a dozen of us went to Tianjin Xingang to investigate, go to the wharf, board the ship, and specially looked at the unloading area to understand all aspects of the loading and unloading of the freighter, the content is very detailed, Li Keqiang showed strong practical work ability and language communication skills.
Li Keqiang's interests are mainly in economic law. In the year of graduation, he organized 20 students to translate the Oxford Law Dictionary, and he was one of the editors-in-chief, and it took only one year before and after. He has great organizational skills.
Steady and steady, with a good mind
When he graduated, Li Keqiang once considered studying abroad. At that time, he paid close attention to the enrollment list of the national preparatory graduate students, and wanted to take the postgraduate examination to study in Europe and the United States, and become an academic and a professor in the future. He graduated with honors as a full honor, and every subject was excellent, and judging from his grades, the probability of being admitted is extremely high.
Later, the secretary of the party committee and the vice principal of the school talked to him and persuaded him to stay in school. He stayed in the Department of Economic Law of Peking University as a teacher, and at the same time served as the secretary of the Youth League Committee of Peking University. When more and more work of the Youth League Committee took up his time, a teacher in the teaching and research department of economic law was very unhappy, saying that the work of the Communist Youth League was not a proper job, and persuaded Li Keqiang to continue the teaching and research work of economic law, and persuaded him not to leave.
When Li Keqiang was working in the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, I went to their house several times. The house he lived in was small, with no features, and there were some books. What impressed me was that his office was very large, and he was in charge of the school department in the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and his work was not very busy. He cares more about his subordinates. Once, a colleague of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League was going to France for further study, and I was studying in France at the time, and he called this subordinate over and asked me to take good care of him. "Our classmates are straightforward and don't talk politely, and he will occasionally be light-hearted and humorous, and make a little joke.
After he was transferred from the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League to work in Henan, we had less contact, but he still had no official relationship with us. At our class reunion, we counted him as a high-level person, and pushed him to sit in the middle, but he always pushed him back and forth and refused to sit. I remember the only time was the class reunion in 2002, he had already served as the secretary of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, and he was a member of the main political party. Li Keqiang usually takes group photos with his classmates, always likes to stand in the back or on the very edge, never publicity, this is the only time I have seen him take a group photo in the center.
Note the second from the right in the back row
At every class reunion, Li Keqiang mainly listens, speaks more backward, speaks more relaxed, and has no sense of distance. He is very logical, but he doesn't like to use one, two, three, four, and his views are very clear. After he became a senior official, our classmates had an agreement that no one should disturb him. I've been with him for many years, and we've never said anything we'd ask each other to help with anything.
When he went to Henan, I wrote him a seven-law poem, I can't remember the full content, and the middle two sentences are still a little impressive, which means that today is chasing the Central Plains, and tomorrow will be in charge of Shenzhou. I guessed that because I always had a lot of faith in him.
He is a steady, hard-working, and well-minded person, and I am not surprised to become the prime minister of the country, but only happy, not surprised.
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