Yang Baibing (Chinese: 杨白冰; pinyin: Yáng Báibīng; 9 September 1920 – 15 January 2013) was a Chinese military officer. He was a senior general and political commissar in the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the younger half-brother of Yang Shangkun. Together, the two brothers effectively controlled the PLA from the early 1980s until the early 1990s.[1][2][3]
Yang had a long and eventful military career, serving as both battlefield commander and political commissar. He fought in the Second Sino–Japanese War and subsequently in the Chinese Civil War, which led to the victory of the CCP and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Along with his half-brother Yang Shangkun, Yang Baibing was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, being arrested, imprisoned and expelled from the Party in November 1966. He remained in prison for almost a decade, until he was released in 1975. In 1978, both Yang brothers made their comeback as allies of Deng Xiaoping. Yang Baibing went on to serve as:
Director of the Political Department and Deputy Political Commissar of the Beijing Military Region (1978–1985)
Together with his brother Yang Shangkun, Yang Baibing played a leading role in crushing the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and was a main planner of the actual operations to clear the square and violently suppress all opposition. The PLA 27th Group Army, which arrived from Hebei and killed several hundred protesters, was commanded by his son, Yang Jianhua.
In the early 1990s, Yang was one of many top Chinese officials who pushed for a strategic partnership with Russia, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite the fact that just a few years earlier, in the 1980s, the PLA was very active in aiding the Mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Yang himself was very active in coordinating military assistance to the Afghans throughout the 1980s, which eventually included weapons such as heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft artillery.[4]
After the 14th Party Congress in October 1992, Yang Baibing entered the Politburo, but he was forced to leave the military in 1993 along with his brother Yang Shangkun, who was also forced to step down as President of China and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Committee in the same year. After the 15th Party Congress in September 1997, Yang Baibing officially retired from politics.