The Cuban Foreign Ministry has announced that this Thursday will be a day of official mourning on the island for the death of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who died on Wednesday at the age of 96 due to leukemia.
According to a statement from the Cuban diplomatic portfolio, the period of mourning will end at midnight tonight and the measure is aimed at paying tribute to a leader who was already awarded the José Martí Order, the highest recognition in Cuba.
The Cuban government has remarked that the former president worked to strengthen ties between both nations, and has highlighted the value of his visit to the island in 1993, when the Caribbean nation was facing an «intensification of the blockade» imposed by the United States.
During this period of mourning, the Cuban flag will fly at half-mast in institutional buildings and military organizations.
Jiang, who was general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) between 1989 and 2002 and president of the country between 1993 and 2003, died on Wednesday of multi-organ failure in the city of Shánghai, as reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The former president was responsible for introducing the concept of «socialist market economy» during a party congress in 1992 and for overseeing the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macau from the United Kingdom and Portugal in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
