He previously held office as Communist Party Secretary of Fuzhou and Vice Governor of Jiangsu.
Yang served as a political instructor at Tsinghua shortly after obtaining his master's degree.
In December 2001 he was named to the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League; he served in the role for three years.
He became an executive secretary at the CYL in January 2006, as well as the head of the office in charge of youth engagement.
[4] Yang was one of the youngest alternate members of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.