Wang P'eng-sheng (5 March 1893-17 May 1946), leading Kuomintang expert on Japanese affairs. During the war years in Chungking, he headed the Military Affairs Commission's institute of international relations, an intelligence-gathering body. He was closely associated with Tai Li (q.v.).

A native of Liling hsien, Hunan, Wang P'engsheng was the son of a scholar, Wang Changchih. After learning to read and write at home, in 1906 Wang P'eng-sheng enrolled at the Liling Higher Primary School, a modern institution staffed by teachers who had studied in Japan. About this time, the Hsing-min Book Company was established in Liling by a T'ungmeng-hui member, Ning Tiao-yuan. It published revolutionary literature, some of which Wang read. Because of family financial difficulties, Wang transferred to the tuition-free Liling Porcelain Industry School, where he studied porcelain painting and porcelain chemistry. Some of his teachers were Japanese, and he soon became interested in Japanese studies. After graduation, he worked for the porcelain company for 18 months. In the spring of 1909 he enrolled at the Army Primary School at Changsha, and that autumn he joined the T'ung-meng-hui.

When the republican revolution began with the Wuchang revolt of October 1911, Wang P'eng-sheng fought at Hanyang on behalf of the revolutionaries. He was forced to withdraw from active duty when he received a telegram informing him of his mother's critical illness. He returned to Liling, arriving there eight days after her death. Because one of her last wishes had been that he wed before her shrine, he married a local girl, nee Chang. He remained at home in mourning until February 1912, when he went to Nanking to rejoin the students of the Changsha Army Primary School. By order of Huang Hsing (q.v.), these students had gone to Nanking to be organized into a cadet corps. Because of his nearsightedness, Wang was assigned to the Military Supplies School. He and the school were moved to Peking in May. During his two years at the Military Supplies School, he came under the influence of Liu Yen, who taught international law. At the same time, he joined the Kuomintang and became a strong admirer of Sung Chiao-jen (q.v.). Wang soon began to devote every available moment to the study of international affairs and Japanese. He translated a number of Japanese legal documents into Chinese for the Anhwei Law Society. After graduation in 1914, he became an assistant instructor at the school.

In the winter of 1916 Wang P'eng-sheng went to Japan on a government scholarship to study at the Japanese Army Commissariat School. Because that school did not have separate classes for Chinese students, Wang was able to read certain war histories and reports which usually were not made available to Chinese. Upon graduation in 1918, he was assigned to field duty for three months. He then managed to have himself attached to the Japanese expeditionary force being sent to Siberia. He met several Japanese commanders and collected extensive information about Japanese units in the Ussuri River region. When he reached Manchouli, Wang discovered that the Japanese had placed him under surveillance. He immediately gave the documents he had collected to a Chinese YMCA official who was going to Mukden. Wang later went to Peking by way of Mukden and wrote a report for the Peking government. Upon receipt of the report, the Peking government sent him to Outer Mongolia as a member of an investigating mission. He returned to Peking two months later and wrote Things Seen and Heard in Outer Mongolia.

The Military Supplies School sent Wang P'eng-sheng to Japan again in the spring of 1920. He became a special student in the economics department of Imperial University in Tokyo. He spent much of his time studying the Japanese political system and collecting information about Japanese ambitions with reference to China. He soon became acquainted with another Chinese student, Kung Te-po, who shared his belief that the Peking government's intelligence efforts in Japan were dangerously weak. Wang and Kung began working together, and Wang soon completed the manuscripts for such works as the Scientific Study of the History of Sino-Japanese Relations : Secret Record of the Truth About Negotiations over Taiwan. When the Washington Conference was announced, Wang and Kung decided to use their knowledge to help the Peking government work out sound diplomatic policies. Accordingly, Wang wrote an essay entitled "Conjectures on the Washington Conference and What Items China Should Prepare to Take Up." Kung took the essay to Peking, where he gave it to his former teacher Hu Yuan-t'an (q.v.) for transmission to the Peking government. When the essay came to the attention of W. W. Yen (Yen Hui-ch'ing, q.v.), the head of the Chinese delegation to the Washington Conference, he appointed Wang and Kung advisers to the delegation.

While Wang P'eng-sheng was in the United States for the Washington Conference, his talents and thorough knowledge of Japanese affairs won him the admiration of Wang Ch'ung-hui (q.v.), who recommended him to C. T. Wang (Wang Cheng-t'ing, q.v.). Upon his return to China, Wang P'eng-sheng was made deputy chief of the investigation department of the Shantung Rehabilitation Commission, headed by C. T. Wang. He held this and other posts at Peking until February 1924, when he went to Shanghai and took a teaching job at the Shanghai Statistical Institute. In the summer of 1925 he took part in a plot to overthrow the military governor of Shantung, Chang Tsung-ch'ang (q.v.). The plot was exposed, however, and Wang fled to Japan. He studied ancient Japanese texts and wrote such articles as the "Discourse on Japanese History" and "The Forgery of Japan's Ancient History." By this time, he had become known as China's foremost "Japanologist." Wang P'eng-sheng returned to China in the summer of 1926 to become chief of staff, with the rank of colonel, in the 2nd Division of the Eighth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. The division was commanded by Ho Chien (q.v.). With the completion of the first stage of the Northern Expedition and the split of the Kuomintang into factions based at Wuhan and Nanking, Ho Chien was made commander of the Thirty-fifth Army of the Fourth Front Army, with Wang as his chief of staff. When Ho became acting governor of Anhwei in September, Wang was appointed acting commissioner of civil affairs for that province. Later that year, Ho sent Wang to Shanghai to call on Chiang Kai-shek, then in temporary retirement, and express Ho's loyalty to Chiang. At Chiang's invitation, Wang remained in Shanghai as a member of Chiang's staff.

In June 1928 C. T. Wang, then minister of foreign affairs at Nanking, sent Wang P'engsheng to Japan on a secret mission to convince Japanese officials not to obstruct negotiations on the revision of Chinese treaties with foreign powers. Wang's success in this mission and in preparing the way for Japanese recognition of the National Government (achieved in June 1929) was such that C. T. Wang later sent him a letter in which he said: "Had it not been for your struggles in Japan for half a year, at least the negotiations over tariff autonomy would have been sabotaged by Japan. It was largely due to your efforts that we here in Nanking have been able to make some smooth progress." After returning to China, Wang P'eng-sheng served for three years as an adviser to the Hunan provincial government. By mid-April 1931 his continued observation of Japanese politics had convinced him that Japan was about to invade Manchuria. He went to Peiping in an attempt to persuade Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) to make preparations for the defense of Manchuria, but he failed to convince Chang of the immediate peril. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria began with the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931. In the aftermath of this incident, V. K. Wellington Koo (Ku Weichün, q.v.) was attached to the Lytton Commission, which was sent to Manchuria by the League of Nations to investigate the Sino- Japanese dispute. At Koo's request, Wang supplied the commission with a large amount of information and documentary evidence in support of China's case.

Also in 1932, Wang P'eng-sheng divorced his wife and married Charlotte D. Tsung, a Wellesley graduate. In September, they were appointed to the Chinese delegation to the General Assembly of the League of Nations. After the meetings ended, they toured Europe and then spent six months in London, where Wang spent most of his time studying Japanese materials at the British Museum. They left London in February 1935 for Ankara, Turkey, where Wang served for a year as counselor of the Chinese legation under Ho Yao-tsu (q.v.). From February to November 1936 Wang served in Tokyo as adviser to Hsu Shih-ying (q.v.), then the Chinese ambassador to Japan. Wang returned to China in November 1936 convinced that war was imminent.

After the Sino-Jaanese war began in July 1937, Wang P'eng-sheng was appointed vice minister of communications in the National Government. He soon went to Kunming to discuss the construction of the Burma Road with Lung Yun (q.v.), the governor of Yunnan. After these discussions, he went on a good-will mission to Burma, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Singapore. Before the war had begun, Wang had proposed the establishment of an international problems research institute to strengthen China's intelligence efforts. Late in 1937 he was summoned to Hankow by Chiang Kai-shek and was appointed director of the Military Affairs Commission's institute of international affairs. By 24 November 1941, the information collected by the institute (then at Chungking) from sources throughout the world had convinced Wang that the Japanese were about to launch a major attack in the Pacific. The War in the Pacific began with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The efficiency of Wang's intelligence-gathering operation brought him to the attention of Allied intelligence services, and he became closely associated with them. In China, he was identified with Tai Li (q.v.) and his intelligence operations. At war's end, Wang P'eng-sheng went to Peiping and Tientsin to deal with problems concerning Japanese prisoners of war and civil residents. By this time, his health had deteriorated because of wartime strains. He rejoined the National Government at Nanking on 16 May 1946. The following day, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was survived by his second wife and by their sons, Hsiao-peng and Yu-peng.