Hsieh Fu-chih

Background

Nothing is known about his background.

Education

Little is known of Hsieh’s early career. However, he holds the first class Order of August First (see below), which was given for military service at the division level and above and which covers the years 1927 to 1937. This suggests that he was with the Chu-Mao forces on the 1934-35 Long March from Kiangsi to Shensi. He is said to have graduated from the Red Army Academy, but it is not known if this refers to the school set up in Juichin in 1933 or to the period in 1936 when it wes re-established in north Shensi. At some time after his graduation Hsieh was reported to have been the political department director, a political committee member, and the commander of a Red Army regiment.

Career

By 1938 Hsieh was political commissar of the 386th Brigade commanded byCh’en Keng. The brigade was subordinate to Liu Po-ch’eng’s 129th Division, one of the three divisions in the Communist Eighth Route Army in north China.” Tn 1938 the 386th Brigade was sent to southern Hopeh and by early fall it had advanced into the Lo-Iing area (east of the Tientsin-Pukow Railroad) in northern Shantung where it joined forces with the local resistance.

Two years later Hsieh was political commissar of the five brigades from Liu’s 129th Division, which participated in the ‘TOO Regiments Offensive.” This Communist drive against Japanese forces in five provinces of north China lasted from August to December 1940 and was focused on the Japanese communications network. The units of the 129th Division were credited with cutting the Peking-Hankow Railroad late in August. As of mid-1940 the main base of the 129th Division was in the Shansi-Hopeh- Shantung-Honan Border Region west of the railroad. The region was divided into two major military sub-divisions, the T’ai-yueh Military District in west Shansi and the T’ai-hang Military District in east Shansi. In 1940 Hsieh was deputy commander of the former and by 1942 he had become head of the T’ai-yuch branch of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political Academy,3 the successor to the Red Army Academy. He remained in the area for the rest of the war.

In 1948 Hsieh was the deputy commander and political commissar of the Fourth Army Corps, the successor of the Fourth Column. However, sometime in the year 1948-49 Hsieh seems to have risen to command his own military unit, because he was then identified as commander of the 10th Army of the Third Army Corps. Hsieh’s force still belonged to Liu’s army, named the Second Field Army in early 1949. In November 1949 the Second Field Army took over Chungking. At about this time the close association between Ch’en and Hsieh ended, Ch’en leading his forces south into Yunnan (with a new political commissar, Sung Jen-ch iung) while Hsieh remained in Chungking to become a member of the Chungking Military Control Commission established on December 3, 1949. Hsieh was in Chungking for about two and a half years during which time one of his most important posts was as chief of the Chungking Party Committee (1949-1952). At about the same time (1950-1952) he was the ranking secretary of the Party Committee for East Szechwan, one of the four administrative units into which the Communists divided the province when they first took it over. Hsieh was also political commissar of the East Szechwan Military District, a member of the East Szechwan People’s Administrative Office, and chairman of the Office’s Finance and Economics Committee, holding these posts from mid-1950 until August 1952 when the four separate administrations for Szechwan were united to become one provincial government, the Szechwan Provincial People’s Government. Hsieh’s final post during his stay in Szechwan was as a member of the regional administration for the Southwest, the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee. He became a member when the administration was created in July 1950 and continued to hold the post when it was reorganized into the Southwest Administrative Committee in 1953-54.

Hsieh was probably transferred from Szechwan when the provincial reorganization took place in mid-1952, for by January 1953 he was the ranking secretary (later called first secretary) of the Party Committee in Yunnan, replacing Sung Jen-ch’iung. During the next six years, while he was the senior Party figure in Yunnan, Hsieh also held important posts in the military apparatus in the southwest. He was political commissar of the Southwest Military Region (SWMR) from 1953 to 1954, succeeding Teng Hsiao-p’ing. The SWMR then controlled military affairs in Szechwan, Yunnan, Kweichow, Sikang, and probably also Tibet. In 1954 the military regions throughout China were reduced in size and redesignated; the SWMR was divided into the Chengtu and the Kunming Military Regions. In the latter, which had jurisdiction over Yunnan and Kweichow military units, Hsieh was political commissar from 1954 to 1959 and commander from 1954 to about 1956. Apart from his military posts at the multi-provincial level, Hsieh was political commissar (1953-1959) and commander (1957-1959) of the Yunnan Military District.

Politics

As the Yunnan Party first secretary and an important military leader in the area, Hsieh was the key official in Yunnan and one of the handful of top men in the entire southwest throughout much of the 1950’s. Although far less important, from 1955 to 1959 he was also a member of the Yunnan Provincial People’s Government Council and chairman of the First Yunnan Committee of the CPPCC. In addition, Hsieh served in the First NPC (1954-1959) as a deputy from Yunnan and was a member of its Nationalities Committee (headed by Liu Ko-p’ing), an important assignment for a Yunnan representative because of the large proportion of national minorities in the province. He was not re-elected to the Second Congress (1959-1964) but was again a deputy from Yunnan to the Third NPC (1964 to date).

While serving in Yunnan Hsieh received important recognition from both the military and the Party at the national level. When national military honors were created in 1955, he received the top three awards the Orders of August First, Independence and Freedom, and Liberation for service in the Red Army from 1927 to 1950. Personal military ranks were also established at this time and Hsieh probably became a colonel-general (a three-star rank), although he was not identified as such until the spring of 1957. In September 1956, at the Eighth National Party Congress, Hsieh served on the Credentials Committee and was then elected to the Central Committee. He was one of 33 persons elected to full membership who had not previously served on the Central Committee, even as an alternate.

Because of his prominence in Yunnan, Hsieh’s activities were frequently mentioned in the Chinese press (e.g., when he spoke at Party meetings or made inspections throughout the province). Moreover, because Kunming serves as a gateway to Southeast Asia, Hsieh was constantly involved in protocol activities, serving as a host for such prominent international leaders as Ho Chi-minh, Sukarno, and U Nu. For instance, in March-April 1957 he took part in talks held in Kunming between Chou En-lai and Burmese Premier U Nu. Later in April, at U Nu’s invitation, he toured Burma and attended a national festival.

Hsieh’s career took a major turn in September 1959 when the central government underwent a partial reorganization. He was called to Peking to succeed Lo Jui-ch’ing as minister of Public Security. In addition, he became director, of the State Council’s Political and Legal Affairs Office (formerly the First Staff Office, also headed by Lo Jui-ch’ing), which supervised the various State Council commissions, ministries, and bureaus (e.g., the Ministries of Public Security and Internal Affairs) concerned with political and legal problems. The Office was abolished about 1961, but was then re-established under the name Internal Affairs Office in May 1963, again under Hsieh’s direction. Six months later he was identified as commander of the PLA Public Security Force. Chinese press media seldom mention security matters and there had been no mention of the Security Force chief after 1957 when Lo Jui-ch’ing held the post. Hsieh may well have succeeded Lo in this position in 1959 when he became minister of Public Security, but if so, the change was not made public then. In June 1964 Hsieh was further identified as political commissar of the Public Security Force. He thus holds four important posts in public security and political supervision work and is probably the most important person in these fields.

Membership

At the close of the Third NPC’s first session in January 1965, Hsieh was appointed one of 16 State Council vice-premiers and a member of the National Defense Council. His dramatic rise in the hierarchy reached new heights in the early stages of the Great Proletarian.Cultural Revolution a year and a half later. In September 1966, shortly after the Party held its 11th Plenum, he was identified as an alternate member of the Politburo.

Connections

Hsieh is married to Liu Hsiang-p’ing, who by late 1956 was a secretary of the Party Committee in Kunming, the Yunnan capital. In 1964 she was elected a deputy from Yunnan to the Third NPC.

Spouse:

Liu Hsiang-p’ing