Background
Yang was born in Hsing-kuo hsien in central-south Kiangsi, probably in the early years of the century.
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Yang Shang-k'uei
Edit ProfileEducation
Yang Shang-k'uei was educated locally.
Career
The extreme difficulties of maintaining a viable Communist movement on the Kiangsi- Kwangtung border persisted until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in mid-1937. During the period of cooperation with the KMT which existed in the early stages of the war, many of the guerrilla units moved northward to fight in the Communists, New Fourth Army (see under Ch'en I). Yang, however, remained behind in Kiangsi and until 1939 he worked in the “liaison offices” established by the New Fourth Army in Chi-an (Kian) and Kan-hsien. He was the senior Communist in the area when Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, was appointed the supervisory officer of an 11-hsien area in southern Kiangsi which included the Communist base areas. Chiang appears to have been a moderately successful administrator, but the Communist accounts predictably describe his rule as tyrannical.
In late 1939 Yang was ordered to Yenan to attend a Party meeting, and from his own account it is clear that he did not return to Kiangsi until it was conquered by Liu Po-ch'eng's armies in 1949. It is probable, though undocumented, that he was assigned to Liu's 129th Division after he went to Yenan in 1939. In any event, he was with Liu’s units in May 1949 when they captured Nanchang, the Kiangsi capital. The Nanchang Military Control Commission was established in early June under the direction of Ch’en Cheng-jen, Ch’en Ch’i-han, and Shao Shih-p’ing all of whom, like Yang, were natives of Kiangsi. Yang was made a commission member and became second deputy secretary under Ch’en Cheng-jen in the provincial Party Committee. In the governmental apparatus he became a member of the Kiangsi Provincial People's Government in March 1950, a post he still retains. In this capacity he served under Governor Shao Shih-p’ing. For a time in 1951 Yang chaired the Southwest Kiangsi Peopled Administrative District, an area with which he was intimately familiar from his guerrilla days.
Yang’s rise in the Kiangsi hierarchy coincided with Ch'en Cheng-jen transfer to Peking in late 1952. By early 1953 Yang was the ranking Party secretary, a post that was redesignated first secretary in 1956 and one that he still holds. Moreover, by the latter part of 1953 Yang succeeded to Ch’en’s other key Kiangsi post when he was identified as political commissar of the provincial military district. He retained this post to at least the end of 1959, but he was not identified in it in later years. After the transfer from Kiangsi of Ch’en Ch’i-han in 1954, Yang and Governor Shao Shih-p^ng were the two top Kiangsi leaders (until Shao’s death in 1965). Yang received still another provincial post in January 1955 when he became chairman of the Kiangsi Committee of the CPPCC, another position he continues to hold. In December of that year the Kiangsi Provincial Planning Committee was established under Yang's direction, but there has been no further information about his work in connection with this assignment.
Politics
In September 1956 Yang attended the Party’s Eighth Congress in Peking and presented a report on how to improve conditions in the old revolutionary bases.” He was not, however, elected to the Central Committee, nor was he elected at the second session of the Congress in May 1958. As of the latter date only three provincial first secretaries were not on the Central Committee: Chou Lin in Kweichow, Kao Feng in Tsinghai, and Yang in Kiangsi. There were no indications then nor in later years that Yang was denied this seat for any political reason. In fact, his activities throughout the fifties and early sixties were typical of provincial officials of his stature throughout China. He was frequently reported in the press addressing Party and government bodies, making inspection trips, and welcoming visitors to the province. Yang also received a number of lesser posts, as in mid-1958 when he was appointed president of the newly established Kiangsi University. Many of these positions were ad hoc, as in September 1957 when he chaired a committee to prepare for the celebrations in Kiangsi marking the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution or in late 1958 when he led a group that reviewed the accomplishments of the “people’s communes” in Kiangsi. He received iiis first regional post in early 1965 when he became a secretary of the Party's East China Bureau.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party