Wang Sheng (simplified Chinese: 王升; traditional Chinese: 王昇; 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 1975-1983; 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.
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.