She was elected deputy mayor of Beijing in 1988, and held that office until 1991. Following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, she persuaded coal workers threatening to go on strike to continue working after some of their colleagues had been killed. From 1991 until 1998, she held successively the posts of Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation, and member of the 14th and 15th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China. A protégé of Zhu Rongji, she became a State Councilor in 1998, and was appointed Vice Premier of the State Council in March 2003. She was the first woman to hold the position since economic reforms began in 1978, and arguably the most powerful woman in Chinese politics since Mao's wife Jiang Qing. She helped negotiate the PRC's entry into the World Trade Organization and re-organised the customs service after U.S. complaints over the widespread violation of intellectual property rights.