Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Chinese dissident sources and members of the family said Zhao died Monday at a hospital in Beijing. Reuters news agency cites a family friend as saying the 85-year-old had suffered repeated strokes.

Zhao joined the Communist Youth League at age 13 and rose to prominence in the party in the early 1950s. He was dismissed as Guangdong party leader in 1967 and rehabilitated six years later, to become party leader of Sichuan, China's largest province.

Later, as China's prime minister, he was known for his market-oriented economic reform. But he was removed from office and placed under house arrest in 1989 after expressing sympathy for students staging pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.