In October 1976, Vice Premier Ji Dengkui played a significant role in taking over the Guangming Daily, helping Mao's successor Hua Guofeng oust the Gang of Four and put an end to the Cultural Revolution.

Under Yang's editorship, Guangming was the first Chinese newspaper to stop publishing Chairman Mao's Quotations on the front page every day.

[8] On 11 May 1978, it published Hu Fuming's famous editorial "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth", refuting Hua Guofeng's Two Whatevers theory in support of Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening policy.

[13][14] The Guangming Daily has been documented to have been used as cover by Ministry of State Security (MSS) officers posing as journalists overseas.

[15][16] Guangming Daily's circulation reached 1.5 million in 1987, but as independent publications flourished during the Reform and Opening era, it dropped to 800,000 in 1993.