Then he was assigned to manage a part of the family business and he took over the running of all 24 mills upon the death of his elder brother Paul Yung (Rong Yixin) in an air crash on Basalt Island, Hong Kong, on 21 December 1948.

When Korean hostilities broke out, Rong's family contributed substantial amounts of funding along with considerable clothing.

He was appointed the vice-mayor of Shanghai in 1957 and Vice Minister of Textiles concurrently since 1959,[1][4] later served as an economics adviser for the Chinese Communist Party.

He lost a great deal of his personal wealth and was the target of death threats from the Red Guards, radical youth organizations aligned with the new social and cultural policies of Mao Zedong.

In a situation typical of disgraced government officials, entrepreneurs and intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution, Rong was given a demeaning job as a janitor.

[5] After the death of Mao Zedong and the end of Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping appointed Rong as an advisor for the economic opening of China.

A week after the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, he called the crackdown “extraordinarily wise and correct.”[6] He was appointed to the ceremonial post of vice president in 1993.