Yang Shangkun

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisYang.

Yang Shangkun
Dương thượng côn
Yang in 1960s
President of China
In office 8 April 1988 – 27 March 1993
Premier	Li Peng
Vice President	Wang Zhen
Leader	Deng Xiaoping
Preceded by	Li Xiannian
Succeeded by	Jiang Zemin
Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission
In office State Commission: 20 June 1983 – 28 March 1993 Party Commission: 12 September 1982 – 19 October 1992
Chairman	Deng Xiaoping Jiang Zemin
Secretary-General of theCCP Central Military Commission
In office August 1945 – November 1956
Succeeded by	Huang Kecheng
In office July 1981 – November 1989
Preceded by	Geng Biao
Succeeded by	Yang Baibing
Director of theOffice of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
In office 24 October 1945 – 10 November 1965
Chairman	Mao Zedong
Preceded by	Li Fuchun
Succeeded by	Wang Dong xing
Member of the National People's Congress
In office 21 December 1964 – 13 January 1975
Constituency	PLAAt-large
In office 25 March 1988 – 15 March 1993
Constituency	SichuanAt-large
7thMayor of Guangzhou
In office March 1979 – September 1981
Preceded by	Jiao Linyi
Succeeded by	Liang Lingguang
Personal details
Born	(1907-08-03)3 August 1907 Tongnan,Chongqing,Sichuan,Qing Empire
Died	14 September 1998(1998-09-14)(aged 91) Beijing,People's Republic of China
Nationality	Chinese
Political party	Chinese Communist Party(joined in 1926)
Spouse	Li Bozhao ​ ​ (m.1929; died 1985)​
Relations	Yang Baibing
Children	3
Alma mater	Shanghai University,Moscow Sun Yat-sen University

Yang Shangkun
Simplified Chinese	Dương thượng côn
Traditional Chinese	Dương thượng côn
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yáng Shàngkūn Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Joeng4 Soeng6-kwan1

Yang in 1940

Yang (right) withNikolai Bulganin

Yang Shangkun(3 August 1907– 14 September 1998) was a ChineseCommunistmilitary and political leader,president of the People's Republic of Chinafrom 1988 to 1993, and one of theEight Eldersthat dominated the party after the death ofMao Zedong.

Born to a prosperous land-owning family, Yang studied politics atShanghai UniversityandMarxist philosophyand revolutionary tactics atMoscow Sun Yat-sen University.He went on to hold high office under bothMao Zedongand laterDeng Xiaoping;from 1945 to 1965 he was Director of theGeneral Officeand from 1945 to 1956 Secretary–General of theCentral Military Commission(CMC). In these positions, Yang oversaw much of the day-to-day running of government and Party affairs, both political and military, amassing a great deal of bureaucratic power by controlling things like the flow of documents, the keeping of records, and the approval and allocation of funds.Purged, arrested and imprisoned during theCultural Revolution,he spent 12 years in prison but staged a comeback in 1978, becoming a key ally of Deng, serving as Mayor ofGuangzhou(1979–81), and returning to the CMC as Secretary–General and also Vice Chairman (1981–89), before assuming the presidency.

One of the earliest supporters ofChinese economic reform,Yang justified it with references toVladimir Leninand theNew Economic Policy.However, he strongly opposed any form of political reform, and, despite his own suffering during the Cultural Revolution, actively defended the image and record of Mao. Together with his half-brother, GeneralYang Baibing,Yang Shangkun effectively controlled thePLAfor the entire 1980s and into the early 1990s. Despite his initial hesitation, he went on to play a leading role in crushing the1989 Tiananmen Square protestsand was actually the one who planned and supervised the operations to clear the square and surrounding streets. Yang's downfall came in 1993, when he failed in his attempts to undermine the new leadership ofJiang Zeminand to retain control of the PLA, and was forced to retire by a coalition of Party elders, including Deng himself.

Early political and military activities

Yang was born to a land-owning familyin Shuang gian g,Tongnan County,near the city ofChongqingin Sichuan, and studied at Chengdu Higher Normal School and itsaffiliated secondary schoolin 1920–25, and then returned to Chongqing. His older brother,Yang Yingongwas one of the founding Executive Committee members of theChinese Communist Party(CCP) in Sichuan, and influenced Yang Shangkun's ideological orientation. After joining theCommunist Youth Leaguein 1925, and the CCP in 1926, he enrolled inShanghai University,where he studied politics.Later in 1927 Yang traveled to theSoviet Unionand enrolled at theMoscow Sun Yat-sen University,where he studiedMarxist theoryand techniques of political organization and mobilization.

Yang was a member of a group of Chinese students who studied inMoscowand returned to China to take a leading role in the CCP, later known as the28 Bolsheviks.TheCominternsent Yang back to China to assist and support other pro-Comintern CCP leaders, includingBo Gu,Wang Ming,andZhang Guotao,but Yang and some of the other 28 Bolsheviks, includingYe Jianying,Wang JiaxiangandZhang WentiansupportedMao Zedonginstead. On his return from Moscow in 1931, Yang Shangkun started his military career in theChinese Red Army,serving as Director of the Political Department in the 1st Red Army and moving around different battle areas under the command ofZhu DeandZhou Enlai.In January 1934, he was appointedPolitical Commissarof the 3rd Red Army, commanded byPeng Dehuai.

Second Sino–Japanese War and Chinese Civil War

During theSecond Sino–Japanese WarYang Shangkun was Deputy Secretary of the CCPNorth ChinaBureau and worked withLiu Shaoqibehind the Japanese lines. In January 1939, Yang became Secretary of the North China Bureau and worked with Zhu De and Peng Dehuai to cooperate with the military operations of theEighth Route Army,including theHundred Regiments Campaign.In 1941, Yang returned toYan'anand worked as personal aide to Mao. In 1945, he became the Director of theGeneral Officeof the Party, as well as Secretary–General of theCentral Military Commission,that was chaired by Mao himself. In these capacities, he was responsible for much of the day-to-day administration of the Party's military and political work, and carried out this duty with much success.

In the subsequentChinese Civil War1949, Yang was Commander of the "Central Security Force"protecting the Party Center, and, in his roles as Director of the General Office and Secretary–General of the CMC, played a significant role in the ultimate Communist victory and the establishment of thePeople's Republic of Chinain 1949.

People's Republic

After the founding of the PRC in October 1949 and until the outbreak of theCultural Revolutionin 1966, Yang Shangkun was one of very few CCP leaders who worked closely with Mao Zedong atZhongnanhaion a daily basis. As the Director of the General Office and Secretary–General of the CMC, he oversaw much of the actual day-to-day work of most party activities and military affairs.On the eve of the Cultural Revolution Yang was identified as a supporter ofLiu ShaoqiandDeng Xiaoping,and was purged as acounter-revolutionary.After being ejected from the Communist Party and removed from all positions, Yang was persecuted byRed Guards,who accused Yang of planting a covert listening device to spy on Mao, the same accusation shared byDeng Xiaoping.

Yang remained in prison until Mao died and Deng Xiaoping rose to power, in 1978. After Deng gained control of the military he recalled Yang, raised him to the position of general, and gave Yang the responsibility of reforming China's army, which Deng considered as larger than necessary and engaged in too many non-military activities. Deng raised Yang to the position of Vice Chairman of theCentral Military Commissionin order to give Yang the authority to complete these reforms (Deng was chairman). In 1982 Yang was also appointed as a full member of thePolitburo.

Yang had a close friendship with Deng and shared many of Deng's long-term economic goals, but was far less enthusiastic about the agenda of political liberalization promoted by other senior leaders favored by Deng, includingHu Yaobang,Zhao Ziyang,Wan Li,andHu Qili.Yang justified his support of economic reforms by referencingVladimir Leninand theNew Economic Policy,and he emphasized that the Communist Party should still enjoy overall control of the economy, even in private businesses, through the system of Party committees in all enterprises. He also always defended Mao Zedong as a great and historic leader, despite his own suffering at the hands of radical Maoists.

In the early 1980s, Yang explicitly backed the efforts of a foreign China historian,Harrison Salisbury,to compile an account of the Long March by conducting extensive interviews with surviving Long March participants. The resulting book,Long March: The Untold Story,has been praised by China scholars as an excellent synthesis of first-hand oral sources. Within China, many Chinese veterans asked why it took a foreigner to produce such a book.

Presidency

Yang meeting withPresident of the United StatesRonald Reaganduring his state visit to the United States in 1987

In 1988, Yang was appointedPresident of the People's Republic of ChinareplacingLi Xiannian,making him the only President who was not a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Under the conventions of the1982 Constitution,the president's role was largely symbolic,with formal executive power wielded by theGeneral Secretary of the Communist Partyand thePremier of the State Council.In practice, party and state leaders still deferred toparamount leaderDeng Xiaoping,who, however, was not all-powerful, as he still had to compromise on some policies with other party elders such asChen YunandLi Xiannian.

Yang's role during theTiananmen protests of 1989caused a fundamental shift in China's political structure. Yang was at first sympathetic to the students and sided with General SecretaryZhao Ziyangin supporting them. As the Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of theCentral Military Commission,he even praised Zhao's position by claiming that Zhao "Ziyang’s notion of pacifying the student movement through democracy and law is good and seems quite workable right now." Zhao's position was contested by PremierLi Pengand Party elderLi Xiannian,who wanted to use force to suppress the student demonstrations and engaged in an internal power struggle with Zhao to convince other senior leaders of their position.

After the hardliners gained the upper hand, Yang changed his position and supported the use of force to suppress student protestors. In May 1989 Yang appeared on Chinese television, where he denounced the student demonstrations as "anarchy" and defended the imposition of martial law on several areas of Beijing affected by the protests. Yang then mobilized and planned the suppression of the demonstrators, an operation in which several hundred protesters were killed on 4 June and subsequent days.Yang's nephew, Yang Jianhua, commanded the highly disciplined27th Group Army,which was brought into Beijing fromHebeito suppress the demonstrators.

Yang (first row, fifth from right) atKim Il Sung's 80th birthday celebrations in 1992

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Yang Shangkun was hugely influential within thePeople's Liberation Army.Yang and his younger half-brother,Yang Baibing,purged China's military of any officers who had not sufficiently supported the government's violent crackdown on students. Yang then began an organized attempt to fill as many senior military positions as possible with his supporters, generating an attitude of resentment among other military elders, who accused Yang of attempting to dominate the army and possibly challenge Deng's authority by developing a "Yang family clique". When Yang resisted the rise ofJiang Zemin(who had been the Party secretary ofShanghai), whom Deng began to groom to succeed him asparamount leader,party elders, including Deng himself forced Yang to retire in 1993, along with some of his family.

Later life

According toVoice of America,before Yang Shangkun died in 1998, he allegedly told army doctorJiang Yanyongthat the crackdown on 4 June had been the most serious mistake committed by Li Peng and the Communist Party in its history, a mistake that Yang believed he could not correct, but which he believed would eventually be corrected.

Yang died on 14 September 1998, aged 91. His official obituary described him as "a great proletarian revolutionary, a statesman, a military strategist, a staunch Marxist, an outstanding leader of the party, the state, and the people's army." On 2001, the ashes of Yang and his wife were interred at a cemetery named after him in Tongnan District, Chongqing.

Personal life

In 1929, he married Li Bozhao, a woman who participated in theLong Marchalongside Yang. They had three sons.

See also

• Politics of the People's Republic of China

References

Sources

• Domes, Jurgen.Peng Te-huai: The Man and the Image,London: C. Hurst & Company. 1985.ISBN0-905838-99-8.
• Eckholm, Erik."Yang Shangkun, 91, Ex-China Chief, Dies".The New York Times.15 September 1998. Retrieved 28 January 2012.
• Teiwes, Frederick C."Peng Dehuai and Mao Zedong".The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs.University of Chicago Press. No. 16, July 1986. pp. 81–98. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
• Xinhua."The Glorious, Militant Life of Yang Shangkun"The People's Daily.Retrieved 28 January 2012.