Hua Guofeng, the man who succeeded Mao Zedong as leader of China and engineered the fall of the Gang of Four, has died in Beijing at the age of 87.

Handpicked by the dying chairman in 1976 to take over as leader of the Communist Party, Mr Hua was never able to consolidate power and lost the job within five years after a bitter power struggle.

On his deathbed, Mao made clear his choice of successor with a phrase still familiar to almost every Chinese: “With you in charge my heart is at ease.”

Within a month of Mao’s death, his successor had approved a military plot to arrest the chairman’s widow, Jiang Qing, and the other members of her radical Gang of Four that was blamed for many of the excesses of the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution.

It was to prove possibly the most famous act of his brief government. He was swiftly associated with his policy of the “two whatevers” – “We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.”

His backward-looking policy statement coupled with his lack of a strong powerbase in the party left him an easy target for rivals in a system in which possession of power rather than position and title really mattered. Deng Xiaoping — a far more experienced and senior leader who could command widespread support — soon challenged his rule. Within two years, Mr Hua had lost control of economic policy. In 1980 he lost the job of premier and a year later was replaced as party chairman.

In purging him, his enemies accused him of a series of offences including attempting to build a cult of personality similar to the that which had surrounded Mao. However, some historians say Mr Hua was a victim of his junior status – he joined the party only in 1938 – in a political culture that valued seniority.

Warren Sun, an expert on Hua Guofeng at Monash University in Australia, said: “The fact that he staged this most dramatic coup d’état against the Gang of Four paved the way for Deng Xiaoping. Without this Deng could have remained in oblivion.”

Mr Hua also presided over two important economic meetings in 1978 at which he approved reforms that would lay the groundwork for the capitalist-style changes that have led directly to China’s current status as a nascent superpower. However, his rivals downplayed his role. Mr Sun said: “There’s a saying in Chinese, ‘Winner takes all’.”

Mr Sun said: “His downfall was not because he had the wrong policies but because of a political culture in which he was too young and junior and lacked revolutionary credentials.”

In early 1978, Mr Hua ordered all economic officials to go abroad to learn and that same year approved plans to accept foreign loans for the first time — marking an important step towards China’s opening up to the world. He never received credit for those policies.

Mr Hua lived out his life in obscurity in a large house built in the grounds of a former prince’s palace at No 9 Huang Cheng Gen, amid grape arbours and guarded by People’s Liberation Army soldiers.

He clung on to a backseat in Chinese politics for decades, ignored and forgotten but still respected. He did not lose his seat on the party’s powerful Central Committee until 2002, even though he had passed the designated retirement age of 70 in 1991.

He last appeared in public as a special delegate to the 17th Party Congress in late 2007, when he was seen dozing in his seat on the back row in the far corner of the leaders’ dais. Mr Hua had been suffering from diabetes and heart problems for some time. State media said only that he had died of illness this afternoon.

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