The Chinese government has said that former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang is ill in hospital, but stable.
The official statement follows reports at the weekend that he had died.
Mr Zhao, 85, has been under house arrest since the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which he was accused of sympathising with.
Correspondents say the Chinese leadership is worried Mr Zhao's death could spark renewed calls for reform.
Many Chinese still view him as a symbol of democratic ideals.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told reporters on Tuesday: "Zhao Ziyang is an old man who is over 80. He fell ill, but after attentive treatment, his condition is currently stable."
1989 TIANANMEN EVENTS
"Overseas media reports that Zhao Ziyang died on 8 January are totally untrue," the spokesman said.
Mr Zhao is suffering from respiratory problems, according to Hong Kong-based rights activist Frank Lu, quoting Mr Zhao's daughter in Beijing.
Wang Yannan told Mr Lu that her father had been in hospital for about a month, and was "not in danger", but other unnamed sources told Reuters news agency that Mr Zhao's state was "not good".
China almost never comments on Mr Zhao, who was expected to succeed Deng Xiaoping as the country's paramount leader, until his removal from office at the height of the Tiananmen protests.
But the administration would be anxious to assure the public that he had not died. The deaths of other liberal leaders in China have tapped latent public frustration at the country's slow pace of democratic reform.
When former Premier Zhou Enlai died in 1976, and pro-reform party leader Hu Yaobang died in 1989, protesters massed in Tiananmen Square.
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