Wang P’ung

Political commissar CCP member politicial officer

1911

China

When war with Japan broke out in mid-1937, Wang was assigned to Lin Piao’s 115th Division, one of the three major units in the Communists' Eighth Route Army. In the fall he participated in the battle at P'ing-hsing Pass in northern Shansi, a much-celebrated battle in Communist annals and one of the few won by Chinese forces during the war (see under Lin Piao). After this, Wang was sent into the Fou- p’ing area in western Hopeh where he became chairman of a “mobilization committee” that was established to organize the peasantry into self-defense units. Not long after these events, U.S. Naval Observer Evans Carlson interviewed a colleague of Wang’s who told him: “Wang P’ing went around to the various villages and counties organizing mobilization committees and propaganda groups. The old civil administration had broken down because most of the officials had fled before the invaders. It was necessary to restore order and convince the people that by cooperating they would resist successfully. At approximately this time Wang became a political commissar in the forces led by LU Cheng-ts’ao, a Manchurian military leader who had joined the Communists soon after the war began and whose units were placed under the jurisdiction of the 115th Division. To consolidate their position in the area, the Communists established the Shansi-Chahar- Hopeh (Chin-Chi-Chi) Border Region in January 1938 at Fou-p’ing. In addition to the Border Region Government (see under Sung Shao-wen, the chairman), they set up a Party Committee for the area. Wang was made a committee member, thus being placed in the company of such top Communists as Lin Piao, Ho Lung, Nieh Jung-chen, and P’eng Chen. Nothing further was reported about his wartime activities, but he probably remained in the Chin-Ch’a-Chi area as a political officer and Party organizer. With the assistance of U.S. Special Envoy George C. Marshall, a cease-fire agreement was signed in January 1946 to bring a halt to the fighting between Communist and Nationalist forces, and to enforce the agreement field teams were posted in various parts of China, each of which had an American, a Chinese Nationalist, and a Chinese Communist representative. Holding the simulated rank of lieutenant colonel, Wang served briefly in 1946 as the Chinese Communist delegate to the field team stationed in Hai-lung hsien, located about 125 miles northeast of Mukden. But when the truce broke down completely over the 1946-47 winter he was transferred to Lin Piao's forces in Manchuria where he commanded a regiment and later a division. Lin’s armies pushed from Manchuria into China proper in the closing days of 1948, most of his units pushed directly southward, but Wang was assigned to Chahar, an area with which he was familiar from his previous service. From 1949 to an unknown date he was chairman of the Military Control Commission in Ta-fung, Chahar, an important rail junction on the line between Kalgan and Taiyuan, the Shansi capital. Concurrently, from 1949 to 1952 he was commander of the Chahar Military District. In addition to these military posts, Wang received his first civil assignment in July 1950 when he was appointed as a vice-governor of Chahar, serving here under Chang Su, another political-military veteran with extensive experience in north China. Less than two months later he became director of the Chahar Government’s Public Security Office. In July 1951 Wang was removed from the security post and the vice-governorship, and then very little was heard of his activities until March 1953 when he was identified as director of the Cadres’ (personnel) Department under the North China Military Region (NCMR). In effect, this was a transfer within the same overall military organization, for until Chahar province was abolished in November 1952 the provincial military district had come under the NCMR. Wang worked in the NCMR under his old superior from the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region days, Nieh Jung-chen. However, he did not long remain in Peking, the headquarters of the NCMR, because in the latter part of 1953, not long after the Korean War had ended (July), Wang was transferred to North Korea to serve with the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV), as the PL A forces in Korea were known. In the latter part of February 1958 an important delegation led by Chou En-lai went to Korea to arrange for the withdrawal of the CPV, negotiations in which Wang doubtless played a leading role. Until this time the Chinese press had been relatively quiet about the activities of the CPV, but after the withdrawal agreement was reached, the Chinese newspapers gave extensive coverage to the staged departure of Chinese troops over the next half year. The motivation for this obviously derived in part from a desire to show that Chinese forces were being transferred home while U.S. forces continued to “occupy” South Korea. Wang himself was mentioned on numerous occasions (e.g., attending a round of farewell banquets), and on the eve of his departure in October 1958 he was given the Korean government’s highest award, the Korean National Flag Order. He and other top CPV commanders were feted in Peking in the days immediately following their return home, and Wang wrote a highly propagandistic article for the JMJP (November 4, 1958) entitled “The Volunteers-Witnesses of the Paper Tiger.” Wang had also assumed a civil post by September 1964 when he was identified as a Nanking vice-mayor, at this same time he was re-elected to the Third NPC, which opened in December 1964, on this occasion as a PLA deputy from the NMR. Presumably for reasons of security, the Chinese press is extremely guarded in its coverage of the PLA officers corps (ceremonial occasions excepted), and as a consequence, Wang’s activities in Nanking are infrequently reported. But it is clear that he spends most of his time there, only occasionally going to Peking.

Wang P’ung

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Political commissar CCP member politicial officer

Background

Nothing is known about his background.

Education

Wang would have been in his late teens when the Chu-Mao forces were established in and around his native Juichin, and it was probably there that he joined the Communists. He was, in any event, with the Red Army on the Long March, serving as head of the Political Department of the Third Army Corps, a major component of the Long March forces led by P’eng Te-huai. In mid-1935，as Wang’s unit was moving north through Szechwan, he negotiated an agreement with the Yi peoples (a national minority group) to allow the Long Marchers safe passage through the area.

Japanese sources report that Wang graduated from the first class of the Red Army Academy (Hung-chiin ta-hsueh), this may refer to the academy established in 1933 on the outskirts of Juichin, but it more probably refers to the school of the same name that the Communists re-established in north Shensi in mid-1936.

Career

When war with Japan broke out in mid-1937, Wang was assigned to Lin Piao’s 115th Division, one of the three major units in the Communists' Eighth Route Army. In the fall he participated in the battle at P'ing-hsing Pass in northern Shansi, a much-celebrated battle in Communist annals and one of the few won by Chinese forces during the war (see under Lin Piao). After this, Wang was sent into the Fou- p’ing area in western Hopeh where he became chairman of a “mobilization committee” that was established to organize the peasantry into self-defense units. Not long after these events, U.S. Naval Observer Evans Carlson interviewed a colleague of Wang’s who told him: “Wang P’ing went around to the various villages and counties organizing mobilization committees and propaganda groups. The old civil administration had broken down because most of the officials had fled before the invaders. It was necessary to restore order and convince the people that by cooperating they would resist successfully. At approximately this time Wang became a political commissar in the forces led by LU Cheng-ts’ao, a Manchurian military leader who had joined the Communists soon after the war began and whose units were placed under the jurisdiction of the 115th Division. To consolidate their position in the area, the Communists established the Shansi-Chahar- Hopeh (Chin-Chi-Chi) Border Region in January 1938 at Fou-p’ing. In addition to the Border Region Government (see under Sung Shao-wen, the chairman), they set up a Party Committee for the area. Wang was made a committee member, thus being placed in the company of such top Communists as Lin Piao, Ho Lung, Nieh Jung-chen, and P’eng Chen. Nothing further was reported about his wartime activities, but he probably remained in the Chin-Ch’a-Chi area as a political officer and Party organizer.

With the assistance of U.S. Special Envoy George C. Marshall, a cease-fire agreement was signed in January 1946 to bring a halt to the fighting between Communist and Nationalist forces, and to enforce the agreement field teams were posted in various parts of China, each of which had an American, a Chinese Nationalist, and a Chinese Communist representative. Holding the simulated rank of lieutenant colonel, Wang served briefly in 1946 as the Chinese Communist delegate to the field team stationed in Hai-lung hsien, located about 125 miles northeast of Mukden. But when the truce broke down completely over the 1946-47 winter he was transferred to Lin Piao's forces in Manchuria where he commanded a regiment and later a division. Lin’s armies pushed from Manchuria into China proper in the closing days of 1948, most of his units pushed directly southward, but Wang was assigned to Chahar, an area with which he was familiar from his previous service. From 1949 to an unknown date he was chairman of the Military Control Commission in Ta-fung, Chahar, an important rail junction on the line between Kalgan and Taiyuan, the Shansi capital. Concurrently, from 1949 to 1952 he was commander of the Chahar Military District. In addition to these military posts, Wang received his first civil assignment in July 1950 when he was appointed as a vice-governor of Chahar, serving here under Chang Su, another political-military veteran with extensive experience in north China.

Less than two months later he became director of the Chahar Government’s Public Security Office. In July 1951 Wang was removed from the security post and the vice-governorship, and then very little was heard of his activities until March 1953 when he was identified as director of the Cadres’ (personnel) Department under the North China Military Region (NCMR). In effect, this was a transfer within the same overall military organization, for until Chahar province was abolished in November 1952 the provincial military district had come under the NCMR. Wang worked in the NCMR under his old superior from the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region days, Nieh Jung-chen. However, he did not long remain in Peking, the headquarters of the NCMR, because in the latter part of 1953, not long after the Korean War had ended (July), Wang was transferred to North Korea to serve with the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV), as the PL A forces in Korea were known.

In the latter part of February 1958 an important delegation led by Chou En-lai went to Korea to arrange for the withdrawal of the CPV, negotiations in which Wang doubtless played a leading role. Until this time the Chinese press had been relatively quiet about the activities of the CPV, but after the withdrawal agreement was reached, the Chinese newspapers gave extensive coverage to the staged departure of Chinese troops over the next half year. The motivation for this obviously derived in part from a desire to show that Chinese forces were being transferred home while U.S. forces continued to “occupy” South Korea. Wang himself was mentioned on numerous occasions (e.g., attending a round of farewell banquets), and on the eve of his departure in October 1958 he was given the Korean government’s highest award, the Korean National Flag Order. He and other top CPV commanders were feted in Peking in the days immediately following their return home, and Wang wrote a highly propagandistic article for the JMJP (November 4, 1958) entitled “The Volunteers-Witnesses of the Paper Tiger.”

Wang had also assumed a civil post by September 1964 when he was identified as a Nanking vice-mayor, at this same time he was re-elected to the Third NPC, which opened in December 1964, on this occasion as a PLA deputy from the NMR. Presumably for reasons of security, the Chinese press is extremely guarded in its coverage of the PLA officers corps (ceremonial occasions excepted), and as a consequence, Wang’s activities in Nanking are infrequently reported. But it is clear that he spends most of his time there, only occasionally going to Peking.

Politics

Shortly before Wang returned to China he had been elected to the Second NPC as a deputy from the CPV. Such representation, of course, became largely nominal when in early 1959 he was assigned to the Nanking Military Region (NMR) as the political commissar, a position he still retains. Responsible for military affairs in Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei, and Shanghai, the NMR is one of the most important military regions; it is also the locale of a number of top military academies and training schools. In the same month that he took up his new assignment (April 1959), Wang was elected to membership on the PRC’s National Defense Council, an organization of nominal power and authority, but one of considerable prestige. He was reappointed to the Council in January 1965 and continues to hold the post. Wang was first identified in April 1962 as political commissar of the PLA Military Academy (Chun-shih hsueh-yuan) in Nanking, one of the Communists' top training institutes and the approximate counterpart of a Western command and staff school.

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Wang P’ung

Background

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Politics

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Career

1946

1949 - 1952

July, 1950

1964