Thomas A. Marks - Counterrevolution in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang

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COUNTERREVOLUTION IN CHINA

For those who made 1986 in Hong Kong the spectacular it was:

Monte Bullard
Sterling Seagrave
Denny Lane
Ed ODowd
Tony Paul

COUNTERREVOLUTION IN CHINA

Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang

THOMAS A. MARKS

Academy of the Pacific
Honolulu, Hawaii

First published 1998 by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS

This edition published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1998 Thomas A. Marks

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Marks, Thomas A.
Counterrevolution in China : Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang
1. Wang, Sheng 2. Generals China Biography 3. Statesmen
China Biography 4. China History Republic, 19121949
5. China Politics and government 19121949
I. Title
951042092

ISBN 0-7146-4700-4 (cloth)
ISBN 0-7146-4238-X (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marks, Thomas A.
Counterrevolution in China : Wang Sheng and the
Kuomintang / by
Thomas A. Marks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7146-4700-4 (cloth). ISBN 0-7146-4238-X (pbk.)
1. Wang, Sheng, dl917-. 2. Generals-Taiwan-Biography
3. Taiwan-Politics and government1949- I. Title
DS799.82.W346M37 1996
951.24905092dc20

[B]	96-13891 CIP

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Contents

Few episodes have been as ill-served by historians as the effort by the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), to carry out a revolution in China. Long overshadowed by its victorious rival, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is only in recent years that the KMT interlude has begun to attract more sustained examination. Few studies, though, carry their scholarship through to its logical end, Taiwan, where the KMT has succeeded in building the society and state it in many respects sought to create on the mainland. Indeed, small wonder in a field where not a single adequate biography of such central figures as Chiang Kai-shek or Chiang Ching-kuo exists that we find little of scholarly note on the revolution of the Chinese Republic.

It was this relatively unexplored state of affairs which I found so exciting when, in the summer of 1993, the opportunity arose to conduct a years research under the auspices of the Asian Militaries Research Society in Carmel, California. Previous service in Taiwan during the Vietnam War combined with a fortuitous intersection of personal contacts to provide the opening for this biography of Wang Sheng. His association with key personalities and institutions of the KMT provides a unique vantage point from which to explore the KMT and its vision of revolution, particularly as embodied in Sun Yat-sens San Min Chu-i.

This vantage point could never have been explored, however, without the cooperation afforded by the scores of individuals, not least of whom was Wang Sheng himself, who consented to the interviews which serve as my most important source of information. These discussions, in turn, would not have been possible without the translation and interpersonal skills of Shan Bullard; Wendy Tsai; Major Jerry Pang, PhD; and Major General Lee Tungming (Tom), PhD. The latter two individuals are active duty Political Warfare officers who gave unstintingly of their time in an effort to ensure the accuracy of the text, particularly the manner in which important translations were rendered. This, too, was a role assumed by Colonel (Retired) Monte R. Bullard, PhD, a former professor, without whose intercession and patient guidance this study would never have reached completion.

O N 10 MAY 1983, a day apparently of no special note in the Republic of China, the countrys president, Chiang Ching-kuo, asked Wang Sheng to come to his office in Taipei. The brief telephone call to Wang, the general who headed the militarys General Political Warfare Department, or GPWD as it was often termed, was a normal thing.1 The two men had known each other for half a century. To many, in fact, they were the numbers one and two respectively in the political hierarchy of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party, the KMT, which, in exile from China, had constructed and ruled the de facto island-state of Taiwan.

As he entered the room, Wang, then 67, saluted and said, Mr President, how are you?, to which Chiang replied, Director Wang. It was a ritual which had been repeated innumerable times. Only five years apart in age, they were nonetheless separated by an immense gulf. For all the talk of relative positions in the KMT hierarchy, it had always been like this, one the teacher, one the dutiful pupil, the very relationship of their meeting those long years ago in Chinas Jiangxi province, cradle of the communist revolution of which they were both firm foes.

So much had happened in the intervening years, yet so much had stayed the same: two figures whose personal relationship remained defined by their relationship to their country. For the previous eight years, those during which Wang Sheng had been the official head of GPWD, he had in public been Director Wang. Chiang Ching-kuo had been President Chiang. When they were alone, Chiang often became Education Director, the position he had held those many years previously in Jiangxi. Wang Sheng became Hua-hsing.

That, of course, was not the name his parents had given him, which was Wang Shiu-chieh. But that name had disappeared along the way. Wang Sheng was the student name which had stuck. Another teacher, though, had taken to calling him Wang Hua-hsing, so sometimes Chiang Ching-kuo called him that. Or he would use the two titles that Wang Sheng had held while Chiangs direct subordinate in the Political Warfare hierarchy, Chief of Education Wang or Assistant Commandant Wang.

Yet this time it was Director Wang. And President Chiang motioned to the sofa. Wang Sheng sat on the left, Chiang on the right. Not well driven by diabetes, his health had been in serious decline for several years Chiang Ching-kuo was very serious.

It had been but several weeks since Wang Sheng had returned from a short trip to the United States at the request of the unofficial US Embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Aside from the usual gossip occasioned by the timing, the whole business had seemed uneventful enough.

Certainly the inevitable carping and criticism, though, had proved irritating. The name Wang could also mean king, and Sheng could mean raise or to rise up. Hence, as Chiang Ching-kuo deteriorated, went the gossip, Wang Sheng, or Rising King, was moving to solidify his position with the Americans so that there would be no disruption, come the transfer of power, in the Republics relations with its chief international backer.

Ironically, the trip had been cleared by Chiang Ching-kuo himself. The timing had been right. After three difficult years of extra duty, heading a special body set up by President Chiang to coordinate Taiwans response to Chinas united front assault, Wang Sheng had found himself back in his familiar GPWD routine when Chiang abruptly terminated the

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