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Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who led the country for a decade of rapid economic growth after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, died on Wednesday at the age of 96, Reuters reported, citing Chinese state media.

Jiang died in his home city of Shanghai just after noon on Wednesday of leukaemia and multiple organ failure, Xinhua news agency said, publishing a letter to the Chinese people by the ruling Communist Party, parliament, Cabinet and the military.

"Comrade Jiang Zemin's death is an incalculable loss to our Party and our military and our people of all ethnic groups," the letter read, saying its announcement was with "profound grief".

Jiang's death comes at a tumultuous time in China, where authorities are grappling with rare widespread street protests among residents fed up with heavy-handed COVID-19 curbs nearly three years into the pandemic.

The zero-COVID policy is a hallmark or President Xi Jinping, who recently secured a third leadership term that cements his place as China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and has taken China in an increasingly authoritarian direction since replacing Jiang's immediate successor, Hu Jintao.

China is also in the midst of a sharp economic slowdown exacerbated by zero-COVID.

Numerous users of China's Twitter-like Weibo platform described the death of Jiang, who remained influential after finally retiring in 2004, as the end of an era.