Mystery surrounding Yang’s family background
Regarding Yang’s family background, several “versions” co-exist in the media. On March 6th, 2002, Yang Bin himself recounted his childhood to me:
“I suffered badly when I was young,” began Yang in a hoarse voice. ”My father died early due to illness, and I become an orphan at just five. It was my grandmother who raised me.”
Yang Bin was born February 11, 1963, in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Mention Nanjing, and most people will reel off a similar string of memorable scenic spots and historical sites: Swallow Jetty, Mochou Lake, Qinhuai River, Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, the Presidential Palace and Confucius Temple.
But none of this brought joyful memories to Yang’s childhood. Back then, he had one burning desire: “I just wanted to fill my stomach.”
Yang was orphaned as a small child, and he and his grandmother depended on each other for survival. They had no source of income, not even enough to buy and sell popsicles. His grandmother could only sell tea on the street, a penny a cup.
And penny by penny, they struggled to save. Grandmother and grandson could just afford coarse rice and cheap vegetables. Yang recalled he used to go with his grandmother to the market after four in the afternoon, because that’s when prices were at their lowest of the day.
According to Nanjing tradition, when a boy turns six years old, his parents should buy a young cock, coat it in crystal sugar, and steam it for him. When he became six, little Yang Bin dreamed of feasting on a sweet cock, just like his friends.
“Will you get a young cock and cook it up for me too?” he implored.
“We’re too poor to eat such fine food, little one,” explained his grandmother. “Blame it on fate. You haven’t a mother or a father. You’re different from other children.”
Yang never got to eat that young cock. As he recalls it, he seldom tasted meat between the ages of six to eighteen.
They couldn’t even afford his annual tuition fee, three Chinese yuan, plus the two yuan for his textbooks. At the start of each school term, his grandmother would take him by the hand to call upon all his relatives, friends and neighbors, and plead for money. This was the only way he could manage to keep studying.
“At that time, I just wanted to fill my stomach,” recalled Yang. “It’s thanks to charity from my relatives that I made it to adulthood. As a child growing up without parents, I was ridiculed. There was no family warmth. When it was time for teacher-parent conferences, there was no one to go for me. So I was very aggressive right from my youth.
“I have experienced almost every kind of human suffering. Except from my grandmother, I received no affection. The key to success in life lies in how you treat other people. So I began to learn how to treat people when I was young, because I grew up in very poor circumstances and had to be my own master.
“When I was small boy, I was so naughty and aggressive that I would do battle with anyone who bullied me.”
Yang Bin pointed to his arm. “My arm was hurt during a fight, leaving me with this scar. When grandmother heard about my fighting, she dragged me home by the ear. I protested that I’d been bullied. But she countered that I was a poor child without parents, and therefore I shouldn’t argue or fight.
“It’s that kind of environment that cultivated my competitive character. I’ve endured more suffering than others. I experienced the most severe hardships. Maybe that’s why I am who I am today. And that’s also why I have learned to withstand all sorts of discrimination, to be patient and tolerant. I believe that you must first treat others well, and only then will they return the favor. Without society there can be no individuals. My existence depends on the existence of others.”
Yang refers to himself as “an orphan” and “a parentless child”. He never uses the phrase “a child whose parents both died when I was young.” Only later, after speaking with his aunts and uncles, did I come to learn the real meaning of being “orphaned at five” and “a parentless child.”
The fourth of Yang Bin’s paternal aunts, Yang Feng-Lin, recounted how he became an orphan. “My parents came to Nanjing and opened a shop selling boiled water to students and teachers. They built a small bathroom in the shop for customers to take a hot bath in the winter.
“They had seven children. Yang Guo-Dao, the eldest, was Yang Bin’s father. Born in Huai’an in 1934, he served as sales manager at Nanjing 720 Factory. He died of liver cancer at just thirty-three. His wife Zhu Cheng-Yan worked in the factory’s kindergarten.
“Soon after my brother died, she married Ding Xin, a driver for Nanjing 720 Factory. When she left, she took everything with her—including my brother’s pension—and left nothing for Yang Bin. After she remarried, she wouldn’t allow her son to visit her. Two years later, the factory relocated to the Dabie Mountain area in Anhui Province, and she and her husband moved there as well.
“Yang Bin became an orphan, living with his grandparents, but his grandfather passed away in 1972. After that, he and his grandmother relied on each other for survival.” (1)
Yang Bin lost his father when he was 5 years old, and soon thereafter, his mother remarried. Never again did he experience maternal love.
Not long after his father passed away, one day Yang Bin waited more than an hour outside his mother’s factory to see her. When she finally emerged, she pretended to ignore him. He called out to her, sobbing, saying he had come because he couldn’t pay his tuition. His mother tossed him five yuan.
“Don’t call me mother. And don’t ever come looking for me again!” And with that, she went her way. That hurt Yang Bin’s feelings deeply. In fact, Yang Bin did live like an orphan.
He never mentioned his mother to people outside his family, and it seems obvious that he still has hard feelings towards her. But his third aunt Yang Feng-Qi and his uncle both told me that after Yang Bin came back from Holland to do business in China, he did actually provide some financial help to his impoverished mother. For instance, when his fiancée Pan Chao-Rong came back from Holland for their wedding banquet at Nanjing’s Tianjin Hotel, Yang Bin invited his mother and his half-sister, still living in Anhui’s Dabie Mountain region, to join the celebration. He also gave them some money then.
“Although my sister-in-law took everything with her when she remarried, I think it’s understandable because she was so poor at that time,” said Yang Bin’s uncle.
Yang Bin has four aunts: Yang Feng-Qu, the eldest, who married Sun Ru-Ping in the Dabie Mountain region of Anhui in 1958; Yang Feng-Nü, the second, who married Wang Shi-Fu, a geography professor at Nanjing University; Yang Feng-Qi, the third, who married Gao Bo-Lin, a cadre in Nanjing 720 Factory’s mechanical workshop; and Yang Feng-Lin, the youngest, who married Shan Hui-Ming, a one-time secretary of the Communist Youth League in Nanjing 720 Factory.
Later on, all his aunts were invited to Shenyang’s Holland Village to work in affiliates of the Euro-Asia Group, a show of gratitude on Yang Bin’s part. But this made the Euro-Asia Group very much like a family-run business, and conflicts between Yang Bin’s relatives and professional managers gradually emerged.
Yang and his grandmother had to earn a living by selling potable water. What about all those aunts and uncles-in-law? We can get an inkling of his situation from his curt statement to this reporter. “My grandmother excepted, I never got any affection to speak of back then.”
Once Yang Bin described the hardships he had undergone as an “orphan.” “One day, one of my aunts and her husband bought a basketful of oranges to share with their children. They gave me just one, and told me to eat outside. After I finished, I stood outside gazing anxiously inside. I wanted to ask for another orange, but I didn’t dare.
“Just then, my grandmother came along and dragged me away, telling me not to stare at others when they’re eating. I said I wanted another orange. Her eyes became red. ‘Who made you an orphan, poor thing! Study hard and make a success of yourself. Then when you’re a grown man, you can make your own money and eat whatever you like.’
“And so, my desire to eat an orange drove me to pledge to become a person of superior position in society.”
At that moment I saw tears in his eyes. Somehow I could feel that the oppression and hardships he suffered in his youth left an indelible impression on him. One that influenced his personality, perhaps even deformed it.
Zhang Guang-Quan, Yang’s classmate in childhood and now in charge of a fishery project for the Euro-Asia Group, spoke with me about their childhood. “We lived nearby and often played together. We fought with each other occasionally, but we were still good friends. At that time, Yang Bin was very thin, perhaps due to poverty. He had just his grandmother to look after him. He was very naughty and often wanted to compete against other kids. Since he had no parents, other kids liked to tease and bully him. So I used to help him out.”
Li Jun, a high school classmate, now in charge of Dandong affairs for Euro-Asia Group, also talked to me about their high school days.
Yang Bin spent his childhood in poverty and then entered Nanjing Tenth High School, a renowned school in the past, which now once again goes under its pre-liberation name, Jinling High School.
“Yang and I shared the same desk in the last row. He only cared about physics, math, chemistry and English, and despised geography, history and physical education. Since we were in the back row, we used to sneak out the back door during study hour and run off to Xuanwu Lake Park. We always had to scale the wall to get into the park, because Yang Bin didn’t even have the five cents for a ticket.” (2)
On May 12, 2002, Zhang Yi-Huai, Yang Bin’s high school homeroom teacher, visited Holland Village. That night, Yang Bin hosted a banquet for him, and I was invited too. The next day, I interviewed Zhang in his villa.
“I was Yang Bin’s teacher in both junior and senior high school,” said Zhang Yi-Huai. “ I mainly taught math, and served as the homeroom teacher. Yang Bin was very fun-loving and didn’t study hard in seventh grade. I recall he was thin at that time, and shared a desk with Li Jun in the row at the very back. Sometimes they skipped classes, particularly study hall. Later, I received complaints from other teachers and had a chat with him. He was quite the character, arguing it was pointless to study geography or go to gym class, as long as he was good at the core subjects.
“But when I taught math, he did pay attention. His performance in other core subjects was also acceptable, so in the end I just made a show of criticizing him a bit. In the latter semester of eighth grade, he began to make sense of things and studied much harder, making big progress in math, physics, chemistry and languages, especially foreign languages.
“I heard that he would rise early every morning and rush to the street where he would study English and loudly recite vocabulary. He persevered in this right until he entered the military academy.”
Did Yang Bin pass the entrance exam to the military academy? Doubts and answers abound on the Internet and in print media.
To clarify the facts, I asked Shan Hui-Ming, Yang’s fourth uncle-in-law. “When Yang Bin graduated from high school, he worked for several months in the workshop in Nanjing 720 Factory where I was employed,” said Shan. “Afterwards, he joined the Navy Second Artillery Battalion, and eventually passed the exam to enter the Navy Second Artillery Academy in Jinzhou. For details, you can check with Wang Jia-Tang.”
Wang Jia-Tang and Yang Bin were classmates in the Navy Second Artillery Academy. Wang joined a bank in Nanjing after retiring from the academy. “Both Yang Bin and I were students in the Navy Second Artillery Academy in 1983,” Wang told me. “We majored in electronic engineering, focusing on radar control and guidance systems. That was a three-year program, equivalent to an associate degree in college. In 1986, Yang graduated from the academy and stayed on as a teaching assistant.”
Chen Hong, another of Yang’s classmates in the Navy Second Artillery Academy gave further details. “I joined the Navy’s Navigation Maintenance Regiment in November 1979. In 1981, I entered the Navy Second Artillery Academy and became one among the first group of students to major in electronic engineering.
“Yang Bin was in the second batch, and since there was no enrolment in 1982, Yang Bin should belong to those who entered the academy in 1983. Yang Bin once told me that he joined the Navy Second Artillery Battalion [author’s note: the land-based missile unit] at the end of 1981. At that time, he was serving in the Navy in Dalian. Later on, he passed the exam, so he left his battalion to enter the Navy Second Artillery Academy. I remember that after he graduated from the academy in 1986, he stayed on as a teaching assistant.
“At year-end 1987, I was transferred from the Navy Second Artillery to an army engineering company in Nanjing as a staff officer. I remember that Yang Bin retired from the Academy in the February of 1988. When he came back from Jinxi, Hao Ning-Bo [another of Yang’s academy classmates, now living in Australia] and I picked him up at Nanjing Train Station.” (3)
So we are now much clearer about Yang Bin’s time in the military academy: After graduation from high school in 1981, Yang Bin worked in Nanjing 720 Factory; in January 1982, he joined the Navy Second Artillery Battalion in Dalian, passing the entrance exam for the Navy Second Artillery Academy in September 1983; he majored in electronic engineering and graduated from the three-year program in 1986, staying on to teach; afterwards, he was appointed as a platoon leader in the Academy, but in 1988, retired from the Academy and returned to Nanjing; and from February 1988 to November 1989, he worked at Nanjing 6902 Factory.

Studies in Holland
In December 1987, Yang retired from the Navy Academy and returned to Nanjing. He was in no hurry to find a job. With a little military retirement money in his pocket, he decided to study English at Nanjing University. It was very popular for students to go abroad for advanced studies then, and he too had such a dream.
So when exactly did Yang Bin go to Holland?
“Yang Bin was supposed to apply for study in Holland in February 1989,” recalled Chen Hong. “Why did he choose Holland over America or other European countries? It could be due to a Dutch girl that he met in Nanjing University. I think Yang Bin went to Holland in October 1989, because I remember that Yang and I saw Hao Ning-Bo off in August that year when Hao left for Australia.”
The article “Yang Bin’s Political Economy,” published by Sanlian Life Weekly (October 2002), points out “how Yang Bin got the opportunity to study abroad was a focal point in overseas media coverage. One of the answers was that ‘he sold his apartment and thereby got enough money to go to Holland.’ Probably no one except mainland Chinese people can accurately weigh the possibility that an orphan could possess his own property in the 1980s.” Since the foreign media were keen to know whether Yang Bin owned a house before going abroad, and whether he sold it to do so, I had to spend more time to research this matter.
Yang Feng-Nü, Yang Bin’s second aunt, told me “Yang Bin originally lived at number 41, Guangzhou Road, in Nanjing’s Gulou District. That was an old bungalow of 72 square meters where my parents established a shop with a bathhouse for clients in the middle, and our rooms in the back.
“Later on, the government reclaimed the land for development. Since my sisters and I had moved away when we married, that left only Yang Bin, his second uncle Yang Guo-Zheng and his youngest uncle Yang Guo-Shun in the old home. In compensation, the government relocated Yang Bin to a new apartment in Hongqiao’s Gulou District (flat 601, block 6, Qijia Lane). It comprised one-and-half bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom, and measured 30 square meters. For their part, Yang Guo-Zheng and Yang Guo-Shun were each compensated with a 42-square-meter apartment. ④
“When Yang Bin got permission from the embassy to study in Holland,” Wang Jia-Tang recalled, “he sold his apartment at Qijia Lane and stayed at my home for several days right before his departure.”
Therefore, the suspicions expressed by some media and Xu Hong-Jiong in Holland are unfounded. Before going to Holland, Yang Bin had not only owned an apartment; he had also sold it legally. It is conceivable that he had US$5,000-10,000 on hand when left for Holland, thanks to the money earned from the sale of his house, his military retirement pay, and a bit of business he conducted during 1988-9.
So how did Yang Bin gain Dutch citizenship?
Xu Hong-Jiong in Holland, a self-styled “political commentator,” authored an article in the Singapore United Morning News stating, “Yang Bin was once a soldier in the naval forces of the People’s Liberation Army (he told me personally). He came to Holland on a tourist visa in 1986, but he didn’t intend to travel. He came here looking for an opportunity to emigrate. After arrival, he applied for political asylum. In order to qualify, he revealed confidential Chinese military information of which he was aware, and joined the local branch of the Chinese democracy movement there.”
How Yang Bin came to Holland is not a critical point. Most Chinese students at that time shared the same objective, i.e., to obtain permanent resident status in a foreign country. They did what it took to realize their dream at that time, and that is quite understandable. We should not judge them harshly, as their ideal was a byproduct of the era.
As for Xu Hong-Jiong’s claim that Yang Bin “revealed confidential Chinese military information of which he was aware”, I was doubtful as to how true that could be. How could Xu prove that this was a “fact”? Unless there was sufficient evidence, it could simply be an allegation.
It is correct that Yang Bin once served as the deputy chairman of the Dutch branch of the Chinese democracy movement. During one of our “night time chats,” he told me the details. “In 1990, Ma Ning was the chairman of the Dutch branch. I got to know him as soon as I arrived at Leiden in Holland. We were both Chinese students abroad and he came from Nanjing too, and when you meet someone from your hometown overseas, you feel really close. When young men get together, you talk about anything.
“Since I had just arrived and was by myself, I enjoyed visiting him and chatting. If it got too late, I would stay overnight at his place. Ma Ning was the first chairman of the Chinese democracy movement in Holland. First, he convinced me to serve as a director, and later he outright appointed me as the deputy chairman.”
In May 2002, I asked Ma Ning about this at Holland Village. “Yes, I appointed him,” he smiled.
So, did Yang Bin obtain his resident status in Holland due to his engagement in the Chinese democracy movement? In my opinion, that is water under the bridge. Just how he obtained Dutch citizenship is not terribly important.

Yang Bin’s Courtship and Marriage
Pan Chao-Rong, Yang Bin’s wife, is also a native Nanjinger, and they were classmates at Nanjing Tenth High School, formerly known as Jinling High School, a renowned school before 1949.
At the beginning of May 2002, I returned from Pyongyang to Holland Village together with Yang Bin’s fact-finding group. I heard that Mrs. Yang had arrived in Shenyang from Holland together with their two children. So I visited them on May 6 at Yang Bin’s home. The fair-skinned Mrs. Yang was beautiful, gentle, friendly and courteous. One could tell that she came from a good family.
She was all smiles as she answered my questions. “Yang Bin and I were classmates in junior high, and schoolmates in senior high school. So we could be considered as childhood sweethearts. My father was a well-known businessman in Nanjing, and my family owned two factories before liberation. After 1949, we handed over our factories to the government at the height of the movement for ‘joint management’ of private firms by the state. But even so, our living conditions were still better than those of an ordinary family.
“Being classmates, we had plenty of opportunities to socialize. Our marriage was entirely handled by my father. He noticed that Yang Bin got good grades at school and got along well with other students—he was often a key player in school activities.
“Later on Yang Bin attended the military academy on Hulu Island in Jinzhou City. After retiring from the academy, he returned to Nanjing. The government demolished his old house so he was relocated to a new apartment on Qijia Lane. We lived nearby. He was single, and sometimes he came to my home to chat with my family. My parents had known him since he was young, and he was straightforward and enthusiastic, quite an energetic young man, and had no family burden of his own. They especially liked the fact that he could cook well. They thought I wouldn’t need to do a lot of housework if I were to marry him.
“At that time, many rich young men tried to please my parents in order to win my hand in marriage. But my parents preferred Yang Bin. When he was planning his studies in Holland, he wanted to marry me before going abroad. But my father said ‘our girl needn’t worry about finding a husband. If you are sincere about her, put your heart at ease and show you can make your way in the world. Study hard out there, and once you’ve settled in, then come back for her.
“Two years later, Yang Bin did indeed return from Holland for me. We held our wedding ceremony in Nanjing, and departed straight away. In Holland, he didn’t have me work outside or fret about anything. When at home, he would cook up a meal of four or five dishes for us. Selecting, buying and cooking the food—he did it all. All I knew was how to buy the most costly vegetables, but he wasn’t like me. He knew how to choose vegetables, what ingredients complemented others, and how to cook them. He was running around to make our living. But I stayed at home most of the time, busy with our two sons, Jack and Jimmy.” (5)
Zhang Yi-Huai, Pan Chao-Rong’s high school teacher, remembered her. “Pan Chao-Rong was also one of my students. She was a classmate of Yang Bin in junior high and went to the same senior high too. There were several pretty girls in her junior high school class, but she was the most beautiful with fair skin and big, watery eyes.
“I recall that Pan Chao-Rong liked literature very much, especially Lu Xun’s writing. She was very straightforward and got along well with other students. She also enjoyed taking part in various activities in the school. Her parents were very strict with her, particularly her mother. She demanded that her daughter return home immediately after school and wouldn’t allow her to go out without permission. But overly tight parental supervision often yields unwanted results, and that was the case with Pan Chao-Rong. She resisted. So her mother visited me often, as I was her homeroom teacher.
“They didn’t even date during junior or senior high school. So I was very surprised when I heard that she was going to marry Yang Bin.” (6)
The Singapore United Morning News of Oct 9, 2002, carried an article by Xu Hong-Jiong. Right after Yang Bin was summoned by the police and his residence placed under surveillance, Xu wrote several stories exposing aspects of Yang’s earlier life in Holland. Seeking truth from the facts should be the basis for both how people live and the things they write, but his claim that Yang Bin “revealed confidential Chinese military information” was not persuasive. Xu also also wrote in his article that “Yang Bin had no money before he arrived in Holland, so he could only turn to the Dutch government for money to get by. That he could earn profits of US$10 million in business—without permanent residence, business know-how, funding or experience—is a fairy tale indeed.”
As I mentioned earlier, Yang Bin already had US$5,000-10,000 in hand before going to Holland. That capital came from his military retirement money, sales proceeds of his apartment, and business profits he made during 1988-9. So Xu’s statement that Yang Bin “had no money before he arrived in Holland” is not factual.
Xu also mentioned Pan Chao-Rong in his article. “At the time, his wife lived on the government relief fund in Holland, which was offered to families with extremely low income or no income at all. If Yang Bin really had earned some US$10 million, and his wife was taking payments from the government relief fund, then that was definitely fraud. I think it is more likely that Yang Bin didn’t have money to establish business in China, just as he didn’t have money when he went to Holland.”
Here, Xu Hong-Jiong is playing tricks with time.
When Yang Bin first arrived in Leiden, Holland, he did not have much cash on hand. This is understandable because after all his expenses—plane tickets, paperwork for his application to study overseas—his US$10,000 or so in cash would have been substantially reduced. Compared with students coming to Holland empty-handed, he should have a slightly better life at beginning. But when compared with high-income locals in Holland where everything was so expensive, he would have been considered as poor. Yang had to emulate the lifestyle of other Chinese students abroad, working part-time for cash. He washed dishes in the restaurants, taught as a tutor, delivered goods, and did various chores to make a living.
Yang Bin came back to Nanjing in 1991 to marry. After deducting wedding expenses and flight tickets to Holland for the couple, it is only logical that Yang Bin would not have had much money left.
Therefore, we can reasonably assume that Yang was not flush with cash when Pan Chao-Rong arrived in Leiden. “He was running around to make a living for us,” as Pan put it. When she arrived, she couldn’t speak Dutch and couldn’t find a job. It was quite normal that the couple received welfare payments.
Half a year after Pan’s arrival in Holland, Yang Bin went to Poland to mine “his first pot of gold“. This “first pot of gold” ought to be seen as a part of his return to China for business. He used the US$20,000 earned from working part-time in Holland to buy textiles and various living goods from China, and then exported them to Holland and Poland. That’s how he came by his “first pot of gold”. Doing this business over several years, he accumulated an estimated US$20 million—the figure is disputed—of assets.
Xu Hong-Jiong’s statement that it is “likely that Yang Bin didn’t have money to establish a business in China, just as he didn’t have money when he went to Holland,” doesn’t jibe with the facts.
An ancient Chinese saying comes to mind: “He who is keen to beat a dog, can easily find a stick to do so.” Xu’s article, which exposes, critiques and executes its target bloodlessly, is very much in the style of the Cultural Revolution era.
As to the impact on his married life of being appointed by North Korea as the Chief Executive of Sinuiju SAR, a Hong Kong reporter whom I introduced interviewed Yang Bin on this topic. I include it here for reference:
Reporter: “Your home isn’t located in Shenyang. How do you get along with your wife and your children?”
Yang: “I have been working hard to maintain my family relationships. I have two sons, one eight years old, the other ten. They live with their mother and are doing well in school. My wife was my high-school classmate. She’s a beautiful woman. I have a good family. But we meet each other only twice a year, during summer vacation and Christmas. After marriage, most Chinese couples are more concerned with their children, while Western couples are more concerned with love between husband and wife. My business is in China but I want my children to receive a Western education. So I have to bear with the separation with my wife.” (He had a rare smile on his face as he said this.)
Reporter: “You made the transition from businessman to Chief Executive of an SAR. Can your wife and children understand you?”
Yang: “At first, they were against my decision. They thought I couldn’t make as much money as before. I would make much less money for my family, but create a lot of billionaires outside. They couldn’t understand what’s in it for me. I tried to explain to them patiently. Now they have gradually come to understand my logic and they all support me.”
Reporter: “You are now the godson of Kim Jong Il. Therefore your children have become his ‘godgrandchildren’. Does your family agree with this?”
Yang: “I don’t think that’s a problem. My sons are obedient. I plan to send them to North Korea to study for several years, to learn the Korean language and culture. Of course, I will also send them to China to study too. They have a good command of Chinese, and we speak Chinese at home.”
Reporter: “Has your family complained about the fact that you have made so many investments, and undergone so many changes”?
Yang: “My wife says it was a mistake to marry me because I have little sense of what constitutes family life, having grown up living off charity. I can only smile and explain that she was unlucky to marry me because I didn’t have a family when young, and now having one makes me a bit agitated. I was born for the world.” ⑦

Footnotes:
1. From my May 16, 2002, interview with Yang Feng-Lin, and statements confirmed on Oct 25.
2. From my May 13, 2002, interview with Li Jun.
3. From my Jun 5, 2002, interview with Chen Hong, and statements confirmed on Oct 25, 2002.
4. From my Oct 27, 2002 interview with Yang Feng-Nü at Holland Village in Shenyang.
5. From my conversations on May 5 and 8, 2002, with Pan Chao-Rong.
6. From my May 13, 2002, interview with Zhang Yi-Huai.
7. For details, refer to article by Hong Kong Commercial Daily reporter, Xu Xun, “Yang Bin: From Businessman to Chief Executive of the North Korean SAR” (Hong Kong Commercial Daily, Oct 5, 2002, page A5).