It may be that Zhu Rongji is the most important Chinese political figure since the death of Mao Zedong's relatively enlightened successor Deng Xiaoping, I don't know. As China's previous premier (number two of the whole place) he was certainly the key technical engineer of China's audacious and epochal move into the World Trade Organization.
He gave the most interesting press conferences of any Chinese leader in anyone's memory, and he certainly was able to keep his cool: As troops were entering Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 ready to bash heads, they were doing no such thing in Shanghai, even though the streets were also jammed with protesters.
That was because Zhu, at that time Shanghai's mayor, took to the city's loudspeaker system to appeal for calm. Because of his enormous credibility, not to mention popularity, the appeal, even though from a high government official, was accepted. There was calm. That was Zhu.