politician CCP member vice-Minister
He was born in I-yang hsien, some 50 miles east of P'o-yang Lake in northeast Kiangsi, the native hsien of two other well-known Communists, Fang Chih-min and Shao Shih-p’ing. Although he was seven years younger than Fang and Shao, his early career was closely linked with these men.
He was educated locally.
By about 1928 an “I-yang hsien Soviet Government” had been formed, and at some point in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s Wang was chairman of this government as well as the head of its military department. However, according to a 1962 account by the widow of Fang Chih-min, it is apparent that the I-yang hsien military force consisted (in 1928) of no more than a handful of men and very few arms. In the 1929-30 period the Communists were able to expand their control in Kiangsi, which led to the formation of the Northeast Kiangsi Workers’ and Peasants’ Democratic Government. Fang Chih-min headed this government from 1930 to 1934, and Wang served as head of the “department of internal affairs” and as president of the court. Also in the early 1930’s, the Communists expanded to adjacent areas in Fukien and Chekiang and formed the Fukien-Chekiang-Kiangsi Soviet Government, with Shao Shih-p’ing as chairman and Wang as the vice-chairman. In January-February 1934 the Second All-China Congress of Soviets was held in Juichin, where the Second Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic was elected, theoretically a government organ embracing all the soviet districts then in existence. Wang was elected to the Central Executive Committee at this time, very possibly in absentia. Afterwards, he was known to have been a vice-chairman of the Fukien Provincial Soviet Government as well as head of the Security Protection Bureau of this same government. Before Juichin was abandoned in the fall of 1934, Wang was apparently brought to the Party headquarters in Juichin to assume an important post in the Central Committee's Security Bureau. He then completely faded from the published record, possibly a deliberate device owing to the nature of work in Party security.
Wang reappeared not long after the end of World War II. As the war drew to a close in summer of 1945, the Party dispatched a number of top military leaders and cadre (such as Lin Piao) to Manchuria in a bold attempt to win this strategic area. Wang was among these men. When Changchun (present capital of Kirin) was captured by the Communists in April 1946, Wang was named as a vice-mayor. At this time, however, the Communists did not have much military strength in Manchuria, and a month later the Nationalists drove the Communists from Changchun, it was not to be recaptured by the Communists until October 1948. Although in the 1946 period the Communists’ main strength was in the Manchurian countryside, they created a regionwide organization known as the Northeast Administrative Committee. Wang’s importance can be gauged in part from the fact that he was named to head the region’s Public Security Department.
Wang then returned to Manchuria where he was to remain for the next five years. Coinciding with the establishment of the central government, the regional administration for Manchuria was undergoing changes in the summer and fall of 1949. The Northeast Administrative Committee was renamed the Northeast People’s Government in August 1949, Wang was appointed to membership in the government and also retained his post as head of the Public Security Department. Already a member of the central procuratorate in Peking, he was named in addition as Procurator General for the Northeast Branch in April 1950. Also, according to unconfirmed reports in 1950, he was the director of the “Social Affairs Department” of the CCP Northeast Bureau, the euphemistic term long employed by the CCP for intelligence and security work. It was evident, therefore, that by the early 1950's Wang was one of the key security officials in Manchuria.
Wang's stature in Manchuria rose during the 1951-1954 period. He was a member by 1951 of the Northeast Bureau of the Party, then headed by Politburo member Kao Kang, who was to be purged in 1955. When the Northeast People’s Government (NEPG) was again reorganized in January 1953, Wang (who had been only a member of the NEPG) was elevated to a vice-chairmanship of the Northeast Administrative Committee (NEAC) and was named to chair the Political and Legal Affairs Committee. It was the latter post which apparently occupied most of his time in 1953 and 1954. He played a major role in the preparations leading to the selection of candidates for the National People's Congress (ultimately convened in September 1954), and gave a detailed report on his work at a meeting of the NEAC in April 1953. In closely related work, he was named as a vice-chairman of a newly formed committee in April 1954 to discuss the draft constitution, which was subsequently adopted at the First NPC session in September 1954.
In September 1954, just prior to the First NPC meetings, Wang was called to Peking where he was named as a vice-minister of Public Security, the ministry then headed by Lo Jui- ch’ing. In retrospect, it is of interest that Wang was brought to Peking several months after the disappearance of Kao Kang, the former senior Party figure in Manchuria. Kao had disappeared in early 1954 and was then officially purged in March 1955 (at which time it was announced that he had committed suicide). Among many other charges, Kao was accused of attempting to set up a “separate kingdom” in Manchuria. No Party or security officials were publicly cited for having ferreted out Kao’s alleged plots, and it is unlikely that the full story of Kao Kang will be known for some time. However, in view of the fact that Wang was one of the top security officials in Manchuria, it seems probable that he was involved in some way in Kao’s downfall (as well as the fall of several other leading Party figures see under Kao Kang).
In 1928, when Wang was 22, he was involved in Communist-inspired peasant uprisings in his native hsien and was doubtless in contact with Fang and Shao, who were at that time actively organizing peasants in and around I-yang hsien (see under Fang Chih-min).
In September 1949, Wang attended the first session of the CPPCC, which brought the central government into being. He attended as a representative of the “Northeast Liberated Area," and during the course of the session served on the ad hoc committee to draft the Organic Law of the Central People’s Government, a committee headed by Party veteran Tung Pi-wu. In October 1949, immediately after the CPPCC session, Wang was given an appointment in the central government as a member of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Also, in October-November 1949, he attended a three-week long national public security conference in Peking, presided over by Public Security Minister Lo Jui-ch’ing and attended by the major security figures in the regime. According to the brief announcement at the close of the conference, it had set up a uniform pattern of public security work to be followed in all parts of China.
Soon after Wang went from Manchuria to Peking in 1954 he fell into relative obscurity. He is known, however, to have been involved in Communist China’s famous “reform-through- labor” movement, a program which embraces not only ordinary criminals, but also political offenders. His participation in this program was made explicit in April 1957 when he gave a report on the subject before the NPC Standing Committee. However, aside from a few pro forma appearances (such as attending a banquet for visiting Cuban military officers in August 1961 or serving on the funeral committee for his long-time colleague Shao Shih-p’ing in March 1965) Wang has not been in the public eye very often. Yet the fact that he retains his position as a vice-minister of Public Security (serving under Hsieh Fu-chih since 1959), suggests that it was the nature of his work in securrty rather than any political difficulty which shields him from undue publicity.
