Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who helped to launch China’s economic boom but was ousted after sympathising with the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters, died today in a Beijing hospital. He was 85.

Zhao had lived under house arrest for 15 years. A premature report of his death last week prompted the Chinese government to break its long silence about him and disclose that he had been hospitalised after a series of strokes.

He fell out of favor and was purged on June 24, 1989, after the military used tanks to crush the student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people.

He was last seen in public on May 19, 1989, the day before martial law was declared in Beijing, when he made a tearful visit to Tiananmen Square to talk to student hunger strikers. He apologized to the students, telling them that he had come too late.

"He is the Gorbachev of China, the failed Gorbachev of China," said Oliver August, the Times China Correspondent.

"If he'd been stronger politically, he could have imposed his will on the Communist Party. And if he had succeeded he would have driven a stake through the heart of the Communist Party in China."

Reformist websites in China quickly filled with comments on Zhao's death. Bao Tong, Zhao's one-time secretary, posted a letter on the internet saying that the Chinese Communist party's attempt to erase Zhao from history revealed its weakness.

"The only reason for Zhao's continued ill-treatment was his opposition to the violent solution to end the Tiananmen protests in 1989," wrote Bao, who was himself jailed for seven years after Zhao's downfall for opposing the bloody crackdown on the students.

He continued: "The conditions under which he was living at the time of his death, in complete isolation from the rest of Chinese society because of a 16-year-long house arrest illegally imposed upon him by the government, is a showcase of shame for Chinese justice and for the Chinese Communist Party itself.

"The persecution of Zhao Ziyang is the persecution of a national leader who dedicated himself for more than a decade to the groundbreaking efforts that became the foundations of China's economic reforms."

Bao has been a thorn in the government's side and has remained under tight surveillance since his release from prison in 1996. He has been an outspoken critic of China's human rights record and the slow speed of political reforms.

Fearing a backlash, the Chinese government took steps to minimise any public reaction to Zhao’s death. The official announcement to China’s people was limited to a two-sentence Xinhua report carried on websites. It wasn’t on the midday state television news, and CNN broadcasts to hotels and apartment complexes for foreigners were blacked out when they mentioned Zhao.

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