Yang Guang studied in Beijing Foreign Language Institute, Institut des Etudes Politiques de Paris and the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and worked as visiting scholar in Wisconsin University, US. He is currently the Director-General and senior research fellow of the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, professor and Dean of the Department for Asian-African Studies at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences supervising PhD program, President of the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies, Executive President of the Chinese Society for African Studies, Vice-President of the Chinese Society for Asian and African Studies, President of the Gulf Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and chief-editor of the academic journal West-Asian and Africa.