Flags at government sites are flying at half-mast and security vehicles are parked in the heart of Beijing, as China mourns former Premier Zhu Rongji.

Zhu died of an illness last week at 97 and was cremated at a funeral in Beijing on Tuesday. The ceremony, attended by senior leaders including President Xi Jinping, was kept low-key. No footage has been released.

Zhu, who served as China’s premier from 1998 to 2003, is remembered as one of the country’s most important economic reformers.

While hailing the late premier as a “loyal” party member, the Chinese state is also wary that public mourning for his era of reform can easily turn into veiled criticisms of the current government under Xi.

Xi was among the leaders who had visited Zhu in hospital or sent condolences after his death, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday. Others included incumbent premier Li Qiang and ex-president Hu Jintao.

After his death, state media described Zhu as an “outstanding member of the Chinese Communist Party” and a “time-tested and loyal Communist fighter”.

He was cremated at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, an exclusive resting place for high-ranking officials and other prominent figures.

Meanwhile, online, posts about Zhu have been contained and censored – including an essay written by economist Zhao Jian, which remembered Zhu’s era as a time when people were “properly poor” but saw a clear future ahead.

“There were no smartphones then, no short-form videos and no screens filled by the purveyors of anxiety,” he wrote.

“The sky was blue, life moved slowly and people could say what they really thought.”

Zhao’s comments were removed from WeChat the day after they were published.

The party has long been fearful of public reaction to deaths of senior officials and public figures.

The deaths of former premier Zhou Enlai in 1976 and former CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang in 1989 prompted widespread outpourings of grief that morphed into protests.

Zhu died just days before the Communist Party leadership gathered to commemorate the birth centenary of President Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022.

The death of Zhu and Jiang, two prominent leaders from the same era, has prompted a wave of nostalgia among many Chinese people for a time when the country looked as if it was going in a different direction – when it appeared that it may open to the world and allow more freedom for its people.