History

The Soong sisters

The Soong sisters, born Ai Ling Soong, Ching Ling Soong and Mei Ling Soong respectively, were among the most celebrated and influential women of the twentieth century. In their lifetime, each exacted tremendous power and influence through their respective marriages.

Their father, Yaoju "Charlie" Soong, was a Hakka Chinese Methodist minister and businessman, who spent around 15 years during the late 19th century in the United States, where he earned a certificate in Theology at the prestigious Vanderbilt University. Their mother, Ni Kwei Tseng, was an aristocratic Christian and strict disciplinarian.

Born in Shanghai in 1890, the eldest sister Ai Ling Soong was educated in the United States and worked for a short time as Dr Sun Yat Sen's secretary, her family having long sponsored his revolutionary work. She met H. H. Kung in 1913 and married him the following year in Yokohama, Japan. Ai Ling Soong was known as a strict and demanding wife, perhaps one reason why her marriage to Kung remained free of scandal.

The couple had two sons and two daughters whilst H. H. Kung became the wealthiest man in early 20th Century Republic of China. Although she didn't engage in political work in the way that her sisters did, she and her husband were involved in much political string pulling. It was she who ended up being the wealthiest of the sisters and arranged the marriage of Mei Ling to Chiang Kai-shek. Ai Ling Soong emigrated to the USA during the 1940s where she lived privately, dying in New York in 1973.

Ai Ling handed her job as secretary to Dr Sun to younger sister Ching Ling Soong who fell in love with Dr Sun Yat-sen and married him in 1915 at the age of 22. An active supporter of liberty and equality, she had been campaigning against the conditions of women in her country since the age of eighteen – concentrating her efforts on the issue of arranged marriages.

On marrying Dr Sun, she not only became his wife but a political equal at a time when women were basically invisible in societal eyes. Ching Ling Soong became the first woman anywhere in the world to take up her duties in the manner of a 'First Lady'. In 1924 she was appointed Head of the Womens' Dept of the party and the following year, began her lifelong campaign fighting her husband's ideals on the death of Dr Sun. In 1949, she was offered the leadership position of the Kuomintang, which she turned down, instead became the Vice President of the Central People's Government Council and in 1981 she was named Honorary President of the People's Republic of China. She died in Peking that same year.

Mei Ling Soong, who became Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, was born in March 1897, in Shanghai. In 1908, she went to be educated in the United States, living near the Wesleyan College for Women campus where her older sister was a student.

Following her graduation from Wesleyan College in 1917, she returned to China, where she honed her fluency in spoken Chinese, and studied Chinese Classics and Literature. She also did social work for the YWCA in Shanghai and was appointed a member of Shanghai's Child Labour Commission.

Mei Ling met Chiang Kai-shek in 1920. He was eleven years her senior, and a Buddhist. Despite already being married, Chiang proposed to Mei Ling. Although Mrs. Soong initially disapproved, he ventually won his future mother-in-law's blessing for marriage to her daughter by providing proof of his divorce and committing to convert to Christianity. However, he told her that he couldn't convert immediately, because religion needed to be gradually absorbed, not swallowed like a pill. He was eventually baptised in 1929. A rising star in the Chinese military, he became General Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Nationalist Party, and engaged in a struggle with communist factions which would last for the rest of his life.

Madame Mei Ling Chiang was, herself, prominently active in the CNP. She began by initiating China's 'New Life Movement' in 1934, with the goal of the "physical, educational and moral rebirth of the Chinese nation". In 1936, she assumed the role of Secretary General of the Chinese Commission on Aeronautical Affairs. She said, " Of all of the inventions that have helped to unify China, perhaps the airplane is the most outstanding. Its ability to annihilate distance has been in direct proportion to its achievements in assisting to annihilate suspicion and misunderstanding..."

She was her husband's English translator, secretary, advisor and an influential propagandist for the Nationalist cause. In February, 1943, Madame Chiang became the first Chinese national, and the second woman, to ever address a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate, making the case for strong US support of China in its war with Japan.

In 1949, when Communist forces gained control of China's major cities, Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland, and declared Taipei, Taiwan to be the temporary capital of China, where he was elected president. Madame Chiang continued to play a prominent international role. She was the honorary chair of the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China, a Patron of the International Red Cross Committee, honorary chair of the British United Aid to China Fund, and First Honorary Member of the Bill of Rights Commemorative Society.

President Chiang Kai-shek died during his fifth term, in 1975. Following her husband's death, Madame Chiang returned to the United States. Her many published works include This Is Our China (1940), Sian: a coup d'Etat (1941) and The Sure Victory (1955). She passed away on October 23, 2003, at the age of 105 having been named one of American's 10 Most Admired Women during the 1960s.