Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin is dead at 96: Chinese state media

• Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin has died at 96, reports Chinese state media.
• The Communist Party announced his death in a letter to the people on Wednesday.

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin is dead at 96, per reports from Chinese state media.

Jiang's death was announced by the Chinese state-media outlet Xinhua News, which ran a letter from the Communist Party to the people of China on Wednesday evening.

In the letter, the party announced that Jiang died at 12.13 p.m. on November 30. His cause of death was leukemia and multiple organ failure.

"Comrade Jiang Zemin is recognized by our Party, our army, and the people of all nationalities as an outstanding leader with high prestige, a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionist, statesman, military strategist, diplomat, and a long-tested communist fighter," read the party's letter.

Jiang was born in 1926 in China's Jiangsu province. He was the president of China from 1993 to 2003, and stepped down in March 2003, handing over the position to his then-Vice President, Hu Jintao. Jiang was notably absent from the latest Communist Party Congress in October.

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