Dai Li, China's Himmler

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Theres an relatively new and interesting book published on Republican era Chinese history, or more precisely the biography of one of China's forgotten men. Dai Li was the head of the Military Investigation and Statistics Bureau (The Orwellian name should you a clue as to what they were about). A government agency of the Republic of China that technically did not exist. Dai Li's power and influence was second only to Chiang Kai Shek, yet he did not hold any official military rank even though everyone referred to him as general.

US military intelligence estimated that the man oversaw a secret network of possibly over 300,000 agents spread all throughout pacific. On the flipside, he was also suspected of operating covert concentration camps for political prisoners and others and was regarded by practically everyone as a ruthless murderer. Many of the politicians and social elites that were in collaboration with the Japanese had a habit of ending up dead and his security network extended well into enemy occupied territory. There were only 2 prominent individuals to have manage survived being assassinated, one of whom was the infamous Wang Jing wei. (He survived because of a botched assassination in 1939 carried out in Hanoi in a case of mistaken identity where his friend and chief aid was gunned down instead.)

You can buy the book off Amazon here, I recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese history.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 26-5786521