From 2014 to 2022, he served as a Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the leading anti-graft body of the Chinese Communist Party.

[1] In 1970, during the Cultural Revolution, he was sent-down youth performing manual labour in the Songji Commune, Taihe County, Anhui province, which lasted until 1973.

He afterwards began working as a division head and deputy general manager for a drug company in Nagqu Prefecture, Tibet.

[2] On December 25, 2016, Yang was named Minister of Supervision, the eighth and oldest person to serve in the position since the founding of the People's Republic, as well as the final one with the abolition of the Ministry in 2018.

[3] After the 19th CCP Congress in 2017, Yang was elected as a member of the 19th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.