Translated below are two agent validation reports on Yang. The template for reports like these resembled be the KGB‘s karakteristika agenta, which was meant to describe, among other things, a person’s ‘strong points and shortcomings … which have come to light while he was used for agent work, prospects for making further use of him, and an evaluation of his work over a particular period’. The first validation report (from 1953) assesses in depth Yang’s overall performance and potential as an operative, while the second report (from 1957) mainly highlights his performance during the Communist Party’s Hundred Flowers Campaign.

Agent 151 started out being operated by the Third Section of the First Division to work on the democratic parties. In 1961, we discovered that Agent 151 and counter-revolutionary element Zhao XXX, who had been plotting to restore the old order, taught in the same middle school. In order to keep all of Zhao’s ongoing activities under surveillance, on 3 July 1961 we borrowed Agent 151 for operational use. Judging from what has been learned in this case from our direction of Agent 151 for more than five months, and the intelligence we have been able to develop, Agent 151 has already been able to connect with the target, maintains a positive relationship with him, and is able to obtain information on his activities.

In order to determine how to carry out agent contingent downsizing and rectification even more prudently, we conducted trial runs in entities directly subordinate to the [Inner Mongolia] regional government’s Department of Finance and Trade and Department of Communications. Below, for reference, we share some of our findings.