politician CCP member specialist in foreign relations
Wang was born in Ching-hsien, Anhwei, a rural area about 50 miles south of Wu-hu, the important riverport on the Yangtze. His family, said to be of rural origins, sent Wang to the St. James mission school in Wu-hu for his midle school education.
Here he first became involved in political activity via the anti-Christian movement, one of the important political currents of his early youth. The years Wang spent in Wu-hu coincided with the growth of this movement and its focus on the mission schools where students, it was felt, were not being offered a properly Chinese education. When further inflamed by the spread of labor unrest following the May 30th Incident of 1925 in Shanghai, the mounting sentiment against the Christian missions caused the missions to close a number of their schools in the Yangtze basin. Among the schools was Wang’s St. James where Wang had been marked as a trouble maker. In 1924 while an upper classman, he had been especially active in getting many of his fellow students to protest the Bible readings and prayer meetings that were a part of the schoo's curriculum.
From 1931 to 1946 he held a responsible position in the Political Department of the Red Army, and for much of that time he was also a member of the Party Politburo. He suffered a notable eclipse at the time of the Seventh Party Congress in 1945, but then rose to be China's first ambassador to the USSR and to hold important Party posts in the postwar period. He was a leading specialist in international Communist work until the early sixties.
Wang attended the Sixth CCP Congress held in Moscow in the summer of 1928, although there is no record that he received a Party post at this time. Many of Mifs proteges returned to China with Mif himself in the early summer of 1930, but Wang apparently came back independently, visiting Germany, France, and other West European countries en route. Once in China he became connected with the underground in Shanghai. A Japanese source reports that at this period Wang engaged in laision work with the All-China Federation of Labor and in propaganda work among Shanghai textile workers. By 1930 he had become a member of the Kiangsu Provincial Party Committee (see under Ho Meng-hsiung), which included Shanghai in its territory. But it was not long before he was also drawn into the political maneuvers to oust Li Li-san from power in the Party, one of Mifs prime objects for going to China. These efforts are only imperfectly documented, hut apparently they had begun by June 1930 soon after the 28 Bolsheviks returned. At that time some members of the group tried to get Li to alter certain statements before issuing them in the form of a resolution from the CCP Politburo. The efforts were unsuccessful, and after the resolution containing Li’s views had been issued on June 11, 1930. four of the principal opponents to it found themselves under censure. The four, Ch’en, Ch’in Wang, and Ho Tzu-shu, were all former Mif students. Wang received an official reprimand followed by a term of virtual exile in Hong Kong. However, he was again in Shanghai in January 1931 for the Fourth Party Plenum when the “28 Bolsheviks” were able to remove Li’s supporters from the Central Committee and Politburo and replace them by their own men. At this time Wang was among the new Central Committee members; he rose to a place on the Politburo following the execution of Party General Secretary Hsiang Chung-fa in June 1931. The Politburo chief for a brief time after Hsiang's death was Ch'en Shao-yii, who presided over an organization of some seven members. Thus Wang was named to the Party Politburo in an emergency and the election of this group later came under fire from Mao Tse-tung (see under Ch’in Pang-hsien). Wang was probably retained in his Politburo post from 1931 until the Party held its Seventh National Congress in 1945.
During the year 1931, when more and more of the Party leadership was forced to leave Shanghai, Wang joined the exodus to southeast Kiangsi, the headquarters of Mao Tse-tung and Chu Te. He was in Juichin for the opening of the First All-China Congress of Soviets on November 7, 1931. According to the account of an eyewitness, Wang opened the Congress and read a list of the 37 delegates who were chosen to sit on the Presidium (steering committee). Described as “an intellectual” himself, Wang gave a brief biography of each Presidium member as he read the names.s He addressed the congress in his capacity of director of the General Political Department of the First Front Army, thus indicating that when the congress opened he already held an important post in the Chu-Mao army, which protected the Kiangsi Communist base. During and immediately following the meetings, he was given two additional military positions of considerable importance. The first was a vice-chairmanship of the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) headed by Chu Te. This body was directly subordinate to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the Chinese Soviet Republic, which had just come into being with the congress. Theoretically the RMC was in charge of the military operations in all the soviets that made up the Chinese Soviet Republic. Wang’s second appointment was to the directorship of the RMC’s General Political Department. At first this post and that of the directorship of the First Front Army's Political Department must have overlapped, especially as both were at first held by one man, Wang. But in the latter part of 1933 the second post, that with the army, was assumed by Yang Shang-k’un, another member of the “28 Bolshevik” group. However, Wang seems to have retained the vice-chairmanship of the RMC and the directorship of its Political Department throughout the Long March and until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
Like many of the leading Communists in Manchuria, Wang was transferred to Peking in 1949 to work in the new central government. He was in Peking in September of that year to participate in the establishment of the national government at the inaugural session of the CPPCC. He attended the meetings as a member of the 16-man CCP delegation headed by Mao Tse-tung and at the close of the sessions was elected to the CPPCC’s First National Committee. In early October he was made a member of the Executive Board of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association and later in that month was appointed as a vice-minister of Foreign Affairs under Chou En-lai. Chang Han- fu and Li K'u-nung were also appointed as vice-ministers, but as of 1949 Wang was the only one of the three who held membership on the Party Central Committee. However, his most important assignment at this time was as Peking’s ambassador to the Soviet Union (the first ambassadorial appointment made by the PRC). The selection of Wang for this important post was probably based on his seniority in the CCP, his past experience in the Soviet Union, and his knowledge of Russian. He arrived in Moscow at the end of October and presented his credentials on November 3.
Upon his return to Peking in early 1951, Wang assumed his post as vice-minister of Foreign Affairs on a full-time basis. From that date to the early sixties he was mainly concerned with relations with other Communist nations and with Communist party leaders in non-Communist nations. In fact, his position in the Foreign Ministry could probably be regarded as a “cover” for an assignment directly subordinate to the Party Central Committee dealing with foreign relations. The U.S. State Department has noted that some sources “have speculated” that Wang heads the Party’s “International Liaison Department,” and the facts of Wang’s career after 1951 tend to bear out such speculation. It was probably in this capacity that he attended the 19th Soviet Party Congress in October 1952 as a member of a delegation led by Liu Shao-ch’i, which also included such Party stalwarts as Jao Shu-shih, Ch’en I，Li Fu-ch’un, and Liu Ch’ang-sheng. Wang was abroad again in the spring and summer of 1954 when he accompanied Chou En-lai to Switzerland for the historic Geneva Conference, which brought an end to the French efforts to subdue the Communist forces in Indochina. He was a member of an equally important delegation in February 1956, which, under Chu Te's leadership, attended the 20th Congress of the CPSU in Moscow the congress at which Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in the so-called secret speech.
Wang was back in Moscow again in November 1957 to attend the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Led by Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese delegation took part in talks with leaders from all the Communist countries (see under Mao Tse-tung). Wang was the only member of Mao’s delegation who did not return to Peking with him on November 21. Though it is possible that Wang remained in Moscow for reasons of health, he may have stayed behind for liaison purposes a supposition that seems plausible in view of later information that the 1957 negotiations between Communist bloc leaders left a number of key issues unresolved. In any event, he did not appear again in Peking until late April 1958, shortly before the Chinese held the second session of the Eighth Party Congress, at which the 1957 talks in Moscow were a major item for discussion. Wang addressed the Congress, but his speech has never been published.
Upon leaving Wu-hu and moving to Shanghai Wang became all the more interested in radical student activities. In 1925 he enrolled at Shanghai University, meeting a number of young Communists who were his teachers (see under Ch’U Ch’iu-pai). He soon joined the Youth League and then the CCP. About 1926 he went to Moscow and in his next few years of study there he became a part of a group of Chinese students who were enrolled at Sun Yat-sen University and who became favorite students of the university chancellor and Comintern official, Pavel Mif. In the next decade these "28 Bolsheviks" came to play an important role in the affairs of the CCP and became embroiled in a political controversy with Mao Tse-tung (see under Ch’n Pang-hsien). Although Wang docs not seem to have been so closely associated with Mif and the Comintern as some of the others of his group, in the years in Russia and following, his career was quite similar to theirs. While he was at Sun Yat-sen he was one of four Chinese students selected to attend the Red Institute for Teachers,an institution offering advanced teaching training along Communist lines. His three colleagues were Ch'en Shao-yii, generally thought to have been the leader of the "28 Bolsheviks” at this time, Ch’in Pang-hsien, and Chang Wen-t’ien. It may have actually been at the Institute that Wang first became closely connected with his three fellow Chinese students.
During the year 1931, when more and more of the Party leadership was forced to leave Shanghai, Wang joined the exodus to southeast Kiangsi, the headquarters of Mao Tse-tung and Chu Te. He was in Juichin for the opening of the First All-China Congress of Soviets on November 7, 1931. According to the account of an eyewitness, Wang opened the Congress and read a list of the 37 delegates who were chosen to sit on the Presidium (steering committee). Described as “an intellectual” himself, Wang gave a brief biography of each Presidium member as he read the names.s He addressed the congress in his capacity of director of the General Political Department of the First Front Army, thus indicating that when the congress opened he already held an important post in the Chu-Mao army, which protected the Kiangsi Communist base. During and immediately following the meetings, he was given two additional military positions of considerable importance. The first was a vice-chairmanship of the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) headed by Chu Te. This body was directly subordinate to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the Chinese Soviet Republic, which had just come into being with the congress. Theoretically the RMC was in charge of the military operations in all the soviets that made up the Chinese Soviet Republic. Wang’s second appointment was to the directorship of the RMC’s General Political Department. At first this post and that of the directorship of the First Front Army's Political Department must have overlapped, especially as both were at first held by one man, Wang. But in the latter part of 1933 the second post, that with the army, was assumed by Yang Shang-k’un, another member of the “28 Bolshevik” group. However, Wang seems to have retained the vice-chairmanship of the RMC and the directorship of its Political Department throughout the Long March and until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
In July 1950 Wang represented the CCP at the Third Congress of the East Germans' Socialist Unity (Communist) Party in East Berlin. Aside from this mission, the public record suggests that the remainder of his tour in Moscow was largely uneventful. However, it should be noted that during his ambassadorship in Moscow the Korean War broke out (June 1950) and Chinese troops entered into the conflict (October). The exact nature of the involvement of Moscow and Peking in the precipitation of the Korean War remains one of the great unknowns of modern East Asian history. Equally unclear is Wang’s connection (if any) with the start of the war or with subsequent Chinese involvement. In any event, not long after the Chinese uvolunteers, crossed the Yalu, Wang was withdrawn from Moscow (March 1951) and replaced by Chang Wen-t’ien who like Wang was also one of the “28 Bolsheviks.” Wang’s 16-month tour of duty in Moscow was indeed brief, but a supposition that he was withdrawn because of dissatisfaction by the top Chinese leadership does not seem borne out by his later career.
Wang continued to appear in public through the spring of 1962, but since that time he has only been mentioned in connection with the funeral of Lo Jung-huan in December 1963 and his already described affiliation with the CPPCC a year later. Thus, like virtually all of the “28 Bolsheviks,” Wang’s active political life seems to have come to an end.
