The most feared man in China, Dai Li, was chief of Chiang Kai-shek's secret service during World War II. This sweeping biography of "China's Himmler," based on recently opened intelligence archives, traces Dai's rise from obscurity as a rural hooligan and Green Gang blood-brother to commander of the paramilitary units of the Blue Shirts and of the dreaded Military Statistics Bureau: the world's largest spy and counterespionage organization of its time. In addition to exposing the inner workings of the secret police, whose death squads, kidnappings, torture, and omnipresent surveillance terrorized critics of the Nationalist regime, Dai Li's personal story opens a unique window on the clandestine history of China's Republican period. This study uncovers the origins of the Cold War in the interactions of Chinese and American special services operatives who cooperated with Dai Li in the resistance to the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and who laid the groundwork for an ongoing alliance against the Communists during the revolution that followed in the 1940s. Frederic Wakeman Jr. illustrates how the anti-Communist activities Dai Li led altered the balance of power within the Chinese Communist Party, setting the stage for Mao Zedong's rise to supremacy. He reveals a complex and remarkable personality that masked a dark presence in modern China--one that still pervades the secret services on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Wakeman masterfully illuminates a previously little-understood world as he discloses the details of Chinese secret service trade-craft. Anyone interested in the development of modern espionage will be intrigued by Spymaster, which spells out in detail the ways in which the Chinese used their own traditional methods, in addition to adapting foreign ways, to create a modern intelligence service.
Author(s): Frederic Wakeman Jr.
Edition: 1
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 672
acknowledgments......Page 12
preface......Page 14
abbreviations......Page 18
maps......Page 20
1 Images of Dai Li......Page 24
2 Living off the Land......Page 35
3 Touben......Page 47
4 The League of Ten......Page 59
5 “Vigorous Practice”: The Chiang Freemasonry......Page 69
6 The Founding of the Lixingshe......Page 78
7 The Lixingshe and the Blue Shirts......Page 89
8 The Blue Shirts’ “Fascism”......Page 108
9 Ideological Rivalries: The Blue Shirts and the “CC” Clique......Page 121
10 The Blue Shirts in the Provinces......Page 133
11 The Shanghai Station, 1932–35......Page 155
12 Death Squads......Page 180
13 Assassinations......Page 191
14 Police Academies......Page 210
15 Sleeping in Their Coffins......Page 229
16 Skirts and Sashes......Page 244
17 War and the Special Movement Corps......Page 260
18 The Training Camps......Page 273
19 Codes......Page 295
20 Dai Li, Milton Miles, and the Foundation of SACO......Page 308
21 SACO Training Camps......Page 317
22 Spying......Page 331
23 Dai Li’s Wartime Smuggling Networks......Page 343
24 Juntong in Wartime Chongqing......Page 353
25 Falling Star......Page 370
Afterword: Daemons......Page 390
Appendix A: Organization of the General Unit of Special Training (later the Northwestern Youth Labor Camp) in Late 1939......Page 392
Appendix B Organization of Juntong Headquarters, 1943–45......Page 394
Appendix C: Terms of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperation Agreement (Washington, D.C., April 1943)......Page 400
Appendix D: SACO Training Units......Page 402
notes......Page 408
bibliography......Page 562
