In 1986, he started working in the State Council of the People's Republic of China on economic restructuring as a member of the Economic Policy Group of the State Council and Deputy Director of the Institute of Chinese Economic Reform Research. He served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Trade from 1986 to 1989 and between 1986 and 1991, he was also a member of the National Committee of Economic Reform. Before the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Zhou was an associate and protégé of Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. In Pillbury's book, Zhou was one of the conservatives that rejected the Russian model of privatization and political reforms (favoured by reformers) and opted for maintaining CPC political control while allowing state owned enterprises to be subjected to market reforms. State owned enterprises were floated on the stock market, influenced with western corporate governance standards as well as transformed into national champions of the Chinese economy. China avoided SOE sold on the cheap to a select few who undoubtedly could become powerful Oligarchs like in the Russian economy.