Internet rumors of Yang’s death (Photo source: Weibo)
Recently, a number of Vloggers, including well-known economist Mei Xinyu, nuclear researcher Wei Shijie and economics professor Zan Yanquan, forwarded the news that Nobel Prize winner in physics and well-known physicist Yang Zhenning had died at the age of 99. The news immediately aroused concern. The news immediately aroused outside attention. 20 morning, Tsinghua University said that the rumors are not true, Mr. Yang Zhenning is currently in good health.
On the 19th, a network of vloggers issued the news that Yang died on March 18, and said that the news was confirmed, an event that many people retweeted and shared.
In the early morning of March 20, Professor Shi Yu, a close friend of Yang, posted an online article to dispel the rumors, saying that he also contacted Yang on the night of March 19, and after he sent the cherished old photos of the two to each other, Yang wrote back to express his gratitude on the 20th.
Tsinghua University then also issued a voice to debunk the rumor, saying that Yang’s death is false news, the old man is now in good health.
Public information shows that Yang is a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, born in 1922. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Southwestern Union University during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1948. He was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Einstein Chair Professor and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the Bowen Chair Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Rockefeller University.
Yang was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with Zhengdao Li on the principle of cosmic non-conservation in weak interactions. But as a scientist, he also caused controversy by defending the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party. He has said that if China ended one-party dictatorship, it would slow down the development of science in China, saying that without one-party dictatorship China would be in chaos. This statement fits the CCP’s need to maintain stability, as he is considered one of the most successful examples of the CCP’s united front.
Lian Yizheng, the former chief Writer of Hong Kong’s Hong Kong Economic Journal, wrote an article in the New York Times, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Hidden Influence Machine,” naming the CCP’s United Front Work Department and the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Consultative Conference and describing how these two party departments influence other countries through a variety of covert means.
The article refers to the return of Chinese scientist Yang Chen-ning, with whom the CCP arranged the Marriage of a young Chinese graduate student just a year after his wife’s death. in February 2017, the 94-year-old Yang announced that he had renounced his U.S. citizenship.
The article by Lian Yizheng indicates that it is a consistent Chinese Communist Party practice of unification to pair a high-value target with a young wife.
Yang’s series of moves in his later years have been a particular cause of concern and the reason for the polarized assessment of him by netizens. at the end of 2004, at the age of 82, Yang married 28-year-old Weng Fan, who had a master’s degree in translation from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. The age difference between Yang and Weng Fan was 54 years, which caused a hot debate. Yang has said that there is indeed a generation gap with Weng Fan.
Political commentator Chen Baokong once told the Voice of America that the big controversy over Yang lies not in the marriage of an old husband and young wife, but in the two of them showing off, holding hands everywhere in a high-profile show of love, which makes people feel fake; not in his renunciation of American citizenship and joining Chinese citizenship, but in the process of lying, pretentiousness, and especially exaggerating the so-called “patriotic It is the lying, pretentiousness and especially exaggerated so-called “patriotic” sentiments in the process.
Recent Comments