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British-Chinese politician and journalist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yuan Yang (Chinese: 杨缘; born 1990)[1] is a British-Chinese Labour Party politician, economist and journalist serving as Member of Parliament for Earley and Woodley since 2024.
Yuan Yang | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 杨缘 | |||||||
Yang in 2024 | |||||||
| Member of Parliament for Earley and Woodley | |||||||
| Assumed office 4 July 2024 | |||||||
| Preceded by | Constituency created | ||||||
| Majority | 848 (1.9%) | ||||||
| Personal details | |||||||
| Born | 1990 (age 33–34) Ningbo, Zhejiang, China | ||||||
| Political party | Labour | ||||||
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford (BA) London School of Economics (MSc) | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 楊緣 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 杨缘 | ||||||
| |||||||
Yang was formerly the UK-based Europe-China correspondent for the Financial Times. She is the first Chinese-born Briton to be elected to the UK Parliament, and the second of Chinese ethnicity after Alan Mak.[citation needed]
Yang was born in Ningbo in China,[2] growing up in the southwestern Sichuan province.[3] She was raised by her maternal grandparents in a work unit (danwei).[4] At the age of four, she moved to the north of England with her parents - moving between Manchester and Leeds.[3] Yang became "very passionate about writing" as a child, and explained that her passion was "encouraged by my teachers and by a group called The Yorkshire Writing Squad that I joined as a teenager".[3]
Yang was educated at the fee-paying Bradford Grammar School, graduating in 2008.[5] She studied for a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 2011 with first-class honours.[6] She was the sabbatical Women’s Officer in the Oxford Student Union.[7]
In 2008 amid the 2007–2008 financial crisis, she co-founded Rethinking Economics, a non-profit campaign that Yang described as coming from the belief that "students should be able to choose among different schools of thought" with regards to economics education.[8][9][10] Yang expressed the hope that the campaign would provide a space for students wanting to address "real world economic issues, broader questions of economic justice and reforming the real economy."[11]
Yang attended the London School of Economics from 2012-2013, studying for an MSc in Economics. Yang studied abroad at Peking University in 2013 as part of a government sponsored programme.[3]
In a 2021 interview with Quartz, Yang noted that she initially intended to become a poet but pivoted to journalism by accident.[12]
She began her journalism career as a Marjorie Dean intern in the economics section of The Economist magazine.[13]
In 2016, she returned to China as an economics correspondent for the Financial Times.[14] She has served as deputy Beijing bureau chief for the FT, and covered China's technology sector and economy. Yang is also a regular contributor to BBC News.[9]
In May 2024, Yang's book[1] Private Revolutions was published by Bloomsbury Publishing.[15] The book is about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, in a society about to change beyond recognition.
In December 2023, Yang was announced as the Labour Party candidate for Earley and Woodley[16] in the 2024 general election.[17] Her family had lived in the area for 14 years prior to her selection as a candidate.[18] Yang explained that part of her motivation for standing as a candidate derived from witnessing "the damage austerity has done to our community" in the area.[18]
In July 2024, she won the newly created constituency with 18,209 votes, beating the Conservative party candidate who received 17,361 votes,[19] and becoming the UK's first Chinese-born MP. Before she was an MP, Yang backed the rights of Hongkongers in the United Kingdom and was critical of the Chinese government's 2020 Hong Kong national security law.[20]
As Yang is a Quaker,[21] she was sworn in to parliament by taking a solemn affirmation on 10 July 2024.[22]
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