Zhu Rongji's reputation rests on a short, unusually hard-edged period of restructuring in the late 1990s. He forced the closure or sale of thousands of loss-making state-owned enterprises, a programme that shifted large parts of Chinese industry out of state hands and into the private sector but also produced mass layoffs of workers who had held guaranteed jobs. He pushed through the privatisation of urban housing, converting state-allocated accommodation into owned property and creating China's home-ownership market. He also overhauled the taxation and financial systems and, as Premier, steered China through the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 without devaluing the currency — a decision credited with stabilising the region. His central diplomatic achievement was leading the negotiations that secured China's entry into the WTO in December 2001, binding the country into global trade rules.