Yang Shangkun

Yang Shangkun
杨尚昆
4th President of the People's Republic 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 the CCP 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 the Office 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 Dongxing
Member of the National People's Congress
In office 21 December 1964 – 13 January 1975
Constituency	PLA At-large
In office 25 March 1988 – 15 March 1993
Constituency	Sichuan At-large
7th Mayor 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 (3 August 1907^[1] – 14 September 1998) was a Chinese Communist military and political leader, president of the People's Republic of China from 1988 to 1993, and one of the Eight Elders that dominated the party after the death of Mao Zedong.^[2]

Born to a prosperous land-owning family, Yang studied politics at Shanghai University and Marxist philosophy and revolutionary tactics at Moscow Sun Yat-sen University. He went on to hold high office under both Mao Zedong and later Deng Xiaoping; from 1945 to 1965 he was Director of the General Office and from 1945 to 1956 Secretary–General of the Central 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.^[2] Purged, arrested and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, he spent 12 years in prison but staged a comeback in 1978, becoming a key ally of Deng, serving as Mayor of Guangzhou (1979–81), and returning to the CMC as Secretary–General and also Vice Chairman (1981–89), before assuming the presidency.^[2]

One of the earliest supporters of Chinese economic reform, Yang justified it with references to Vladimir Lenin and the New 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, General Yang Baibing, Yang Shangkun effectively controlled the PLA for the entire 1980s and into the early 1990s. Despite his initial hesitation, he went on to play a leading role in crushing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and 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 of Jiang Zemin and to retain control of the PLA, and was forced to retire by a coalition of Party elders, including Deng himself.