For a time, the couple lived in Kobe, Japan, where the Taishō period of democracy heavily influenced Xie.

The May Fourth Movement was a political turning point for Xie, and she later joined Chiang Wei-shui's resistance against Japanese rule.

[2][3] Xie studied sociology at Shanghai University and took part in the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925,[3] the same year she was told to join the Chinese Communist Party.

In November 1927, she returned to China and began taking actions that led to the founding of the Taiwanese Communist Party (TCP) in 1928.

At the direction of Sen Katayama, cofounder of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), Xie and Lin Mu-shun [zh] began recruiting for what would become the TCP in Shanghai.

Both traveled to Japan to seek help from the JCP on a draft of a party charter, which was smuggled by Xie past Japanese authorities in Shanghai upon her return to China in February 1928.

[6] In 1947, she convened the 27 Brigade and was involved in the February 28 incident from her home base in Taichung, telling the masses not to damage property or injure anyone.