At the CCP's 15th National Congress in September 1997, Xi Jinping was elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee for the first time; some commentators said he ranked last among the 151 alternate members by number of votes.
Deng Xiaoping died on February 19, 1997. Jiang Zemin took full hold of supreme power, ushering in the Jiang Zemin era.
Following the death of Deng Xiaoping in 1997, Jiang Zemin broke free from the constraints of the supreme elder, assumed comprehensive control of party, government, and military power, and ushered in his era of governance.
The state-owned sector's push for "grasping the large and letting go of the small" and the buyout of employees' seniority led to about 40 million workers in state-owned and collective enterprises losing their jobs; the breakdown of the social contract triggered serious social and economic problems.