Wang Sheng (; October 15, 1915 – October 5, 2006) was a general in the Republic of China Army from 1970, head of the General Political Warfare Department (總政治作戰部), and a close confidant to President Chiang Ching-kuo.
As the Director of the General Political Warfare Department, which was responsible for secret military and intelligence operations from 1975 to 1983; Wang was the second most powerful person in Taiwan after President Chiang Ching-kuo as he led the "Liu Shaokang Office" (劉少康辦公室) which was described as the inner court of the Kuomintang party headquarters, and he was rumoured to be the successor to Chiang.
Mainland life
Wang Sheng, born Wang Shiu-chieh on October 15, 1915, was the son of a rich Hakka land-owning family in Longnan County, Jiangxi, on the Guangdong border. He received an elementary education at Chih-liang Elementary School (1924–29) and then worked as a clerk in his brother's traditional medicine store. After a return to formal study at Nanfang Institute of Chinese Literature, (1932–35), Wang joined the Righteous Warriors Communist Suppression Squad, a militia mopping up after the remaining forces left behind in the former Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet area after the Chinese Communist Party embarked on its Long March.
Wang subsequently joined the 12th Jiangxi Security Protection Regiment, in 1936, as a clerk. After a year, he was transferred to the training battalion of the 6th Strong Youth Training Regiment, which was directly under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo. CCK, as he later became known, had just returned from a decade in the Soviet Union, during which time he reportedly joined the communist party and then became disillusioned with it. Wang became aide de camp to a regimental commander working directly under CCK, but there is no indication the two men met at that time.
After a brief period of combat and further self-education, he entered Class 16 of the Jiangxi Third Branch of the Central Military Academy in February 1939. It was at this time that Wang joined the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party), and after graduating first in his class, he was sent to the Three Principles of the People (San Min Chu-i or San Min Zhuyi) Youth Corps Training Course, run directly by CCK. Again, Wang graduated at the top of his class, and was chosen to work for Chiang Ching-kuo, which he did for the next 50 years.
After several years in Southern Jiangxi administration, Wang was sent to Chongqing for further training and to attend the San Min Zhuyi Youth Corps’ 1st National Congress, in 1943. At the congress, CCK emerged from his post-Russian shadow and took leading roles in the half-million-strong parallel youth organization. After the congress, Wang was sent back to Jiangxi as the third ranking leader of the provincial Youth Corps. In 1944, he entered the first class of the Central Cadre Academy Research Division, a type of political graduate school; one of his classmates was future Premier Li Huan. However, military setbacks shortened the students’ studies.
Desperate for more soldiers, the party in late 1944 created a youth militia, and made 35-year-old Lieutenant General Chiang Ching-kuo its Political Department Director. Lieutenant Colonel Wang was sent to the South-east Branch as political officer (commissar) of the training base for the 208th and 209th Divisions. (While Wang was at this assignment, a young communist named Jiang Zemin was arrested, and later released by his unit. In 1989, Jiang became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.)
At the end of the War Against Japan, Wang was in charge of the 1st Section (propaganda) of the 31st Corps Political Department, a logical progression when his 208th and 209th Divisions were reorganized into the corps-level unit. From November 1945 to June 1946, Wang was with his units on garrison duty in Hangzhou. He was then reassigned to the seemingly low position of Director of Student Affairs at Chia-hsing (Jiaxing) Youth Middle School, a specially established training and education institution for demobilized soldiers of the Youth Army. He was, however, still directly under the orders of Chiang Ching-kuo.
A year later, in July 1947, CCK tapped (now full) Col. Wang as an inspector in the Ministry of National Defense Bureau of Preparatory Cadres, a revamped Youth Army demobilization organization. Ironically, the transfer coincided with a general mobilization to staff the newly erupting civil war. As needs changed, Wang was tasked as Deputy Section Chief in the KMT Youth Department, his first party assignment. He was nominally based in Nanjing, but travelled to universities across Nationalist-held territory.