Yang Yung-ch'ing (26 June 1891-6 March 1956), known as Y. C. Yang, prominent Methodist lay leader and long-time president of Soochow University.
Wusih, Kiangsu, was the birthplace of Y. C. Yang. His father, a physician and a secondgeneration Christian, was a doctor at the Methodist mission hospital at Soochow who later joined the staff of the Soochow University Bible School at Sungkiang. His aunt, Dora Yui, was among the first widely known women evangelists in China. After being graduated from Soochow University in 1910, Y. C. Yang taught there for a year. He then went to the United States for advanced study at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He received an LL.B. degree in 1918 and an M.A. degree in 1919. While a student in the United States, he also served in 1916 as private secretary to V. K. Wellington Koo (Ku Weichün, q.v.), then Chinese ambassador to the United States. Yang also was an editor of the Chinese Students Monthly and president of the Chinese Student Conference in 1917. After completing his academic work, Y. C. Yang was appointed secretary in the Chinese legation at London in 1920. Because his training and talents were well suited to staff work at international conferences and because of his association with Wellington Koo, Yang was assigned as secretary and adviser to the Chinese delegations at three important meetings : the International Labor Conference at Washington in 1919, the first meeting of the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva in 1920, and the Washington Conference of 1921-22. He then returned to China, where he served under Wellington Koo in the ministry of foreign affairs at Peking. In the next five years he directed several important commissions, and in 1926 he served briefly as consul general at London.
In 1927 Y. C. Yang left government service to become the first Chinese president of Soochow University, succeeding Dr. W. B. Nance. As Yang undertook his new responsibilities, Soochow University was in the process of complying with the new registration requirements established by the National Government's ministry of education at Nanking. The colleges of science and of liberal arts were registered separately; and as distinct and somewhat competitive institutions, they were spurred to rapid expansion of their student bodies, facilities, and equipment during the first years of Yang's administration. Yang was absent from Soochow for a time after the Japanese attack on Mukden in September 1931. He served as senior secretary and director of a department of the ministry of foreign affairs at Nanking. In addition to his administrative tasks at Soochow University, Y. C. Yang continued to devote time and energy to a variety of Christian activities in China. His prominence as a Methodist layman led to his election in 1930 to the National Christian Council of China and to its executive committee. Two years later, he became a member of the national committee of the YMCA. In 1937 he was a leader in the "Bishops' Crusade" to raise funds in the United States to liquidate the debts of the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions. Traveling 15,000 miles in two months, he spoke in every section of the United States. During this period, he also served as a Chinese delegate to three general conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1938 he represented China at the meeting of the International Missionary Council at Madras, and in 1939 he participated in the special sessions of that body in the United States.
Y. C. Yang made another trip to the United States during the Sino-Japanese war. At the end of his sabbatical leave, he found himself unable to return to Soochow University because of the war. He then accepted an offer from Bowdoin College to become its Tallman Professor of Chinese Civilization. He also lectured at Emory, Duke, and Ohio Wesleyan universities and at Lake Erie College; and in 1945 he was named the first Mayling Soong Foundation resident lecturer at Wellesley College. His Emory University lectures of 1942 were published in 1943 as China's Religious Heritage, described by its author as the first book in English on the religions of China written by a Chinese. During this period, Yang also served as head of the speakers bureau of the Chinese News Service in the United States, in which capacity he addressed many American audiences in an attempt to increase support for the Chinese war effort.
In 1945 Y. C. Yang served as associate secretary of the Committee on the Security Council at the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco. He became a member of the Preparatory Commission and associate chief of the section on specialized agencies at the first meeting of the General Assembly at London in 1946. He also was named an adviser to the Economic and Social Council and to the Chinese delegation to the General Assembly.
Late in 1946 Y. C. Yang resigned these posts and turned his attention to the task of rehabilitating Soochow University in postwar China. The pressing problems created by the necessity of raising funds in the United States to permit rebuilding in the face of mounting inflation in China required Yang to cross the Pacific five times between the end of 1946 and mid- 1948. Yang remained in China when the Chinese Communists gained power in 1949 but apparently played no active role in the new regime. He died at Shanghai on 6 March 1956, at the age of 64.
