Wang Dongxing

汪东兴

1916–2015 ↓ Left office 1980 · natural causes

Mao’s bodyguard chief whose Zhongnanhai Unit 8341 arrested the Gang of Four, then pushed aside for the “two whatevers”

"A loyal soldier of Chairman Mao to the end": he guarded Mao for decades and had Unit 8341 arrest the Gang of Four in 1976.

From Jiangxi, he guarded Mao after the Long March and from 1949 headed the Central Guard Bureau (Unit 8341), managing the leadership’s security and daily life. Director of the General Office during the Cultural Revolution and trusted by Mao, in October 1976 he used Unit 8341 with Ye Jianying and Hua Guofeng to arrest Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four. Made party vice-chairman in 1977, he backed Hua’s “two whatevers” against Deng Xiaoping, resigned the vice-chairmanship in 1980 and left politics. He died in 2015 at 99.