BEIJING, Aug 31: China cremated on Sunday the man handpicked by a dying Mao Zedong to succeed him as Communist Party chairman, Hua Guofeng, marking the passing of one of the last of an old guard of leaders who lived through the Mao era.

Hua, who died on Aug 20 aged 87, helped ease the country out of the chaotic Cultural Revolution, but was later toppled by reformist leader Deng Xiaoping.

Hua was cremated at Babaoshan, the cemetery for the Communist Party’s elite in a western suburb of Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Hu was “an outstanding CPC member, a long-tested and loyal Communist fighter and a proletarian revolutionary who once held important leading posts in the CPC and the government”, Xinhua said.

A source close to the family told Reuters that both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao visited Hua in hospital before he died, in a sign of respect to the former leader.—Reuters