Wu Jinglian

In 2008, state-owned media in China started calling Wu a spy for the U.S. The fact state-owned newspaper People's Daily was authorized to call him such indicates that his economic and political ideas are great annoyances for the current leadership.

Wu currently (as of 2006) holds multiple positions, the most important of which are: Professor of Economics at both the China Europe International Business School and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Senior Research Fellow for the Development Research Center of the State Council of the PRC; and Member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. As of 2021, he is also an adviser to the China Finance 40 Forum (CF40).

Wu pointed out that “old-style Maoists” have been gaining influence in the government since 2004. These groups, he said, are pressing for a return to central planning and placing blame for corruption and social inequality on the very market reforms he championed.

He was forced to make public denunciations of his revered teacher Sun Yefang, for which he later expressed deep regret. He has honoured the memory of another victim of political persecution, Gu Zhun, whose unyielding character and pioneering attempts to revise Marxian economics in a market-oriented direction were for Wu a source of enlightenment. In the 1960s, Wu participated in a group led by economist Yu Guangyuan to write a textbook on political economy. The first economics textbook printed in China after 1949, the Political Economy Reader (Chinese: 政治经济学读本) was widely circulated and played a significant role in later economic reforms.

Wu graduated from Fudan University with a degree in economics in 1954. He later attended the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Through his long career, he has, in addition to his professorships at Chinese universities, been visiting researcher and professor at a number of international universities, including Yale, MIT, Duke, Stanford, and Oxford.

Wu Jinglian (Chinese: 吴敬琏; pinyin: Wú Jìnglián; born January 24, 1930) is one of the preeminent economists of the People's Republic of China (PRC), primarily specializing in economic policy as it applies to China's ongoing series of economic reforms.