Background
Wang was born in 1887, into a landlord family in K'ai-hsien in northern Szechwan.
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Wang Wei-chou
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One of the oldest of the Chinese Communist leaders, Wang Wei-chou joined the CCP in the late twenties after a long career in revolutionary activity in Szechwan that began during the 1911 Revolution. He served as a garrison commander and civil administrator in Kansu and Shensi during the Si no-Japanese War and then as a government official in the southwest during the early years of the PRC.
Education
Little is known of his early life, but by the 1911 Revolution he was serving in the army as garrison commander in Ta-hsien, 50 miles west of K'i-hsien.
Career
Wang’s activities in north Szechwan from 1928 to 1932 are not well documented, but he apparently remained in command of troops variously described as bandits or Communists. In any event, he was still in the area in late 1932 when Hsu Hsiang-ch'en led his Fourth Front Army from the old Communist Oyiiwan base to north Szechwan. By the first half of 1933 the Communists had established the T'ung-Nan-Pa Soviet, named for the principal hsien in northeast Szechwan, which the Soviet occupied. This area (also known as the Szechwan-Shensi Soviet) is described in the biography of Wang Hung-k’un. Wang Wei-chou associated himself with the Soviet and placed his troops under the command of the Fourth Front Army. When the Second All-China Congress of Soviets was held in Juichin in January-February 1934, he was elected to the governing Central Executive Committee, almost certainly in absentia. Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien’s forces were then composed of five armies, there is conflicting evidence, but apparently Wang commanded the 33rd Army as of 1934. A Western journalist who visited the Soviet areas in the mid-thirties (shortly after the Communists departed) commented that the 33rd Army was newly organized and poorly equipped.
In the first part of 1935 the forces led by Hsu and Chang Kuo-fao left Szechwan, the complex route taken on their portion of the Long March is described in Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien’s biography. When the Si no-Japanese War broke out in mid-1937, Hsu’s troops were absorbed into the 129th Division under Liu Po-ch’eng’s command. One of this Division’s subordinate elements was the 385th Brigade. This brigade was apparently commanded by Wang Hung-k'un during the early stages of the war, but whereas Wang Hung-k'an operated in Hopeh and Shantung, Wang Wei-chou apparently remained in the eastern Kansu area. In any event, from about 1940 to the close of the war he seems to have commanded the 385th Brigade, or at least elements of it. He was identified as a brigade commander in Ch'ing-yang hsien, southeast Kansu, in 1939 and during the war was also commissioner of what the Communists called the East Kansu Administrative District. In November 1941 Wang attended the Second Assembly of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan- Ning) Border Region, originally established in 1937 with its capital at Yenan.
By 1948 he was a deputy commander under Ho Lung of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia-Shansi-Suiyuan Joint Defense Headquarters, and when this evolved into the Northwest Military Region in 1949 he continued to serve under Ho. When Sian fell to the Communists in May 1949, Ho became head of the Municipal Military Control Commission and Wang was named to head the Sian Defense Force (presumably a garrison command post). He remained there throughout the summer and then in September 1949 he went to Peking as a representative of the “Northwest Liberated Areas,J to attend the CPPCC meetings which brought the new central government into existence (October 1). Wang may have returned to the northwest after the meetings in Peking, but if so he was only there briefly, for by the first half of 1950 he was transferred to the southwest (as was his superior, Ho Lung). With this transfer, Wang's active career in military affairs was brought to an end. Already in his mid-sixties, he has since concentrated mainly on political matters.
To administer the four provinces of Szechwan, Yunnan, Sikang, and Kweichow, the Communists established the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC) in July 1950 under the chairmanship of Liu Po-ch’eng Wang’s former colleague. Among the vice-chairmen were imporant Party leaders Ho Lung and Teng Hsiao-p’ing as well as Wang. Concurrently, Wang was named to head the SWMACs Nationalities Affairs Committee. The selection of Wang for this assignment may have derived from the fact that his native area in north Szechwan is heavily populated by minority peoples. He received a closely related post in April 1951 when he became president of the Southwest Nationalities Institute in Chengtu, Szechwan, the newly organized school formally opened in June 1951. Then, in November of the same year, Wang was identified as director of the Southwest Party Bureau’s United Front Work Department. United Front work is principally concerned with gaining the allegiance of non-Communist intellectuals, but in areas where appropriate (as in southwest China) united front specialists are also responsible for gaining the allegiance of the non-Han minority peoples. Wang’s other assignment under the SWMAC was as head of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (late November 1951 to mid-1953). When the SWMAC was reorganized into the Southwest Administrative Committee in February 1953, he retained his vice-chairmanship, still under Liu Po-ch'ing. From October to November of that year he accompanied his colleague Ho Lung to North Korea as a deputy leader of a large delegation sent to “comfort” the Chinese troops who remained there after the Korean War.
To administer the four provinces of Szechwan, Yunnan, Sikang, and Kweichow, the Communists established the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC) in July 1950 under the chairmanship of Liu Po-ch’eng Wang’s former colleague. Among the vice-chairmen were imporant Party leaders Ho Lung and Teng Hsiao-p’ing as well as Wang. Concurrently, Wang was named to head the SWMACs Nationalities Affairs Committee. The selection of Wang for this assignment may have derived from the fact that his native area in north Szechwan is heavily populated by minority peoples. He received a closely related post in April 1951 when he became president of the Southwest Nationalities Institute in Chengtu, Szechwan, the newly organized school formally opened in June 1951. Then, in November of the same year, Wang was identified as director of the Southwest Party Bureau’s United Front Work Department. United Front work is principally concerned with gaining the allegiance of non-Communist intellectuals, but in areas where appropriate (as in southwest China) united front specialists are also responsible for gaining the allegiance of the non-Han minority peoples. Wang’s other assignment under the SWMAC was as head of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (late November 1951 to mid-1953). When the SWMAC was reorganized into the Southwest Administrative Committee in February 1953, he retained his vice-chairmanship, still under Liu Po-ch'ing. From October to November of that year he accompanied his colleague Ho Lung to North Korea as a deputy leader of a large delegation sent to “comfort” the Chinese troops who remained there after the Korean War.
Politics
By the early summer of 1946 the CCP apparently believed that Wang’s position in Chungking had become untenable and that he llshould be sent away. According to the Communist Version, the KMT initially blocked Wang's departure by refusing to issue him an airline ticket but finally did so upon Wu Yii-chang's intervention with Chang Ch’iin, then head of the KMT provisional headquarters in Chungking. When Chang agreed to Wang's departure in the summer of 1946 he is alleged to have said to Wu: “Wang handles military affairs, and if he doesn’t leave, everybody will be uneasy.’’ Wang then proceeded to Nanking to join Chou En-lai, but in November 1946 Chou broke off the talks and returned to Yenan, presumably taking Wang with him.
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Born
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Died
1970 (aged 83) -
Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Career
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January, 1934
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1948
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1951 - 1953
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June, 1951