in the 1980s, ye served as president of bipt. in april 1985, he published an article in the official journal "red flag" advocating the modernization of china's telecommunications industry. in 1988, ye and fellow academician zhang xu published a report that advised the breakup of the monopoly that the ministry of posts and communications held in china's telecommunications industry. it was highly controversial at the time and many thought it would threaten ye's career, as the bipt was directly controlled by the ministry. however, the chinese government adopted their proposal and created shareholding companies to operate the country's telecommunications networks.