Soong family The Soong family, often regarded as republican China's first family, emerged in a single generation from obscurity to prominence in the political, economic, and social life of China. T. V. Soong instituted many important reforms in the financial structures associated with the National Government and became an important link between China and Western political and financial men. The Soong sisters, Ai-ling, Ch'ing-ling, and Mei-ling, became the wives, respectively, of H. H. K'ung, Sun Yat-sen, and Chiang Kai-shek. The origins of the Soong family were as marginal as its later rise was spectacular (for details, see Charles Jones Soong). The eight years Charles Jones Soong spent in the United States as a youth laid the foundations for various relationships with Americans in China. However, Soong became so Westernized during this period that, after his arrival in Shanghai, he had to study local Chinese customs and dialects before he could perform effectively as a Methodist missionary in the lower Yangtze valley. After he was appointed to the K'winsan circuit in the Soochow district, he renewed his acquaintance with New Shan-chow, whom he had met in Boston. New, a brother of W. S. New (Niu Hui-sheng, q.v), had married one of the three daughters of the Ni family of Yuyao, Chekiang. They were descendants of Hsu Kuang-ch'i (ECCP, I, 316-19), one of the first Soong family [138] Chinese converts to Christianity. New Shanchow introduced Charles Jones Soong to his sister-in-law Ni Kwei-tseng (1869-23 July 1931). She had been educated at home by tutors and at the Pei-wan Girls Higher School. That her home environment had been marked by Western influences was indicated by her fondness for playing the piano. Soong's new social status, buttressed by his Christian training in the United States, was confirmed when his proposal of marriage to Ni Kwei-tseng received her family's approval. They were married in 1887 in a ceremony performed by Clarence Reid, a Southern Methodist missionary. Their first child, Ai-ling, was born in 1890; a second daughter, Ch'ing-ling, arrived in 1892. Financial pressures created by his growing family responsibilities and conflict with his superintendent, Dr. Young J. Allen, caused Soong to turn from missionary work to business in 1892. He remained active in Methodist affairs in Shanghai, however, and one of his enterprises was the Mei-hua Shu-kuan [Sino- American press], which published Chinese editions of the Bible and translations of religious tracts. Another daughter, Mei-ling, and three sons, Tzu-wen (T. V.), Tzu-liang (T. L.), and Tzu-an (T. A.), were born into the Soong family in the next decade. In 1905 Charles Jones Soong went briefly to the United States to enroll his eldest daughter at Wesleyan College for Women, a Methodist institution in Macon, Georgia. Three years later, Ch'ing-ling and Mei-ling joined their sister in Georgia. Ch'ing-ling became a college student, and Mei-ling studied privately until she was old enough to go north and become a member of the class of 1917 at Wellesley. By that time, T. V. Soong had enrolled at Harvard, from which he was graduated in 1915. All of the Soong children received their higher education in the United States. T. L. Soong was graduated from Vanderbilt in 1921, and T. A. Soong received a B.A. degree from Harvard in 1928. Soon after the Chinese republic was established, the Soong family became directly involved in Chinese political affairs. After discussions in 1912 between Charles Jones Soong and Sun Yat-sen, who had become acquainted in 1894, Soong Ai-ling, who had returned to Shanghai in 1909, became Sun's English-language secretary. The two elder Soongs and Ai-ling accompanied Sun to Japan after the so-called second revolution of 1913. When Ai-ling left Sun's entourage to marry H. H. K'ung (q.v.), she was replaced by her sister Ch'ing-ling, who married Sun Yat-sen in October 1914. With the death of Charles Jones Soong in May 1918, his widow assumed direction of the Shanghai household. Although her English was limited, Mrs. Soong made many friends among the Western missionaries. She participated in charitable activities and was a devoted worker at Allen Memorial Church in Shanghai. At this time, T. V. Soong and Soong Mei-ling were in Shanghai, and Soong Ch'ing-ling moved between Canton and Shanghai as her husband's political fortunes fluctuated. Soong Ai-ling and H. H. K'ung were based in K'ung's native Shansi province. He divided his time between a prosperous family business and the affairs of the Ming-hsien School, which in 1919 became affiliated with Oberlin College. In the early 1920's H. H. K'ung began to work for the Kuomintang; and T. V. Soong moved to Canton in 1923 to participate in the republican government and to strengthen its shaky financial structure. The final illness of Sun Yat-sen in early 1925 brought most members of the Soong family to Peking to attend him. After Sun's death on 12 March, Soong Mei-ling and Eva Macmillan, registrar of the Peking Union Medical College, made the arrangements for the private Christian funeral service that was held in the college chapel a week later. The death of Sun Yat-sen created a succession crisis within the Kuomintang and gave rise to factionalism which eventually split the Soong family itself. During Sun Yat-sen's lifetime, Soong Ch'ingling had not been active in political affairs. As the living symbol of the founder of the Chinese republic, however, she was thrust into politics at a time when the Kuomintang was splitting into factions and the Kuomintang-Communist alliance was becoming fragile. The situation was complicated by the emergence of Chiang Kai-shek as the dominant military leader of the Northern Expedition launched from Canton in the summer of 1926. By the end of that year, both Soong Ch'ing-ling and T. V. Soong were in Wuhan, participating in the joint Kuomintang- Communist regime established there. The tumultuous events of 1927 increased the frictions [ 139 Soong family that had developed within the Soong family, and the situation became critical when Chiang Kai-shek made a proposal of marriage to Soong Mei-ling, whom he had met in 1924 at Sun Yat-sen's home in Canton. Chiang, who was married and who was not a Christian, hardly seemed an appropriate suitor for a Wellesley alumna of Christian missionary background who was one of Shanghai's most attractive and eligible socialites. The union was strongly supported by Soong Ai-ling, but it was vigorously opposed by Soong Ch'ing-ling, who left China in August 1927 for Moscow because she believed that the new Kuomintang policies were perversions of her husband's principles. Chiang Kai-shek finally won the all-important approval of Mrs. Charles Jones Soong, and he and Soong Mei-ling were married in December 1927 at Shanghai. The years 1928-36 in China marked a period of unprecedented effort at national unification, modernization, and reform under the auspices of the Kuomintang. T. V. Soong became minister of finance in the National Government at Nanking in 1 928, and he enabled that regime to secure the financial support of the leading Chinese bankers of the lower Yangtze provinces. He also worked to gain tariff autonomy for China and to abolish obstructive internal tax restrictions. Soong Ai-ling was regarded as a power behind her husband, H. H. K'ung, who then served as minister of industry and commerce at Nanking. But the key to influence over Chiang Kai-shek was held by Soong Mei-ling, who quickly enlarged the scope of her impressive abilities as civic activist and club woman from Shanghai to the Chinese nation. Only Soong Ch'ing-ling remained adamant in opposing the new leadership of the Kuomintang. She remained in the Soviet Union until 1929, when she returned to China to attend the state burial of her husband at Nanking. In order to marry Soong Mei-ling, Chiang Kai-shek had promised that he would investigate Christianity. He was baptized by Z. T. Kaung (Chiang Ch'ang-ch'uan) at Allen Memorial Church in Shanghai on 23 October 1930. Soong Mei-ling stood beside her husband at that ceremony and repeated vows with him to dramatize their joint dedication to Christian principles and to the rejuvenation of China. Chiang's baptism constituted a triumph for his mother-in-law, who had elicited the promise to study Christianity from him three years earlier. Mrs. Soong, who was less Westernized than her late husband, to some extent based her appraisal of Chiang Kai-shek on the fact that they both were natives of Chekiang. Some informed observers believed that Chiang was her favorite son-in-law. Not long after the baptism, in July 1931, Mrs. Soong died at her summer home at Tsingtao. From 1932 to 1937 Soong Ch'ing-ling resided in Shanghai. She steadfastly opposed Chiang Kai-shek and the Nanking-based Kuomintang on the grounds that their political policies were reactionary; their economic measures, superficial; and their social programs, repressive. These charges (which were echoed by the Communists) notwithstanding, the National Government did effect reforms in China during the years when members of the Soong family held official posts at Nanking. T. V. Soong played a major role in the establishment and direction of public finance until the autumn of 1933, when he resigned because of his opposition to soaring military expenditures and to floating bond issues to finance economically unproductive military campaigns against Chiang Kai-shek's opponents. H. H. K'ung succeeded his brother-in-law and held the top financial post in the National Government for a decade thereafter. In 1934 the so-called New Life Movement was launched, and it stressed Christian as well as traditional Chinese principles, thus reflecting the influence of Soong Mei-ling in the National Government. She also recruited into government service a number of American-educated Chinese who had Protestant backgrounds and outlooks. The Sian Incident of December 1936 (see Chang Hsueh-liang; Chiang Kai-shek) created a new crisis for the Soong family as well as for the Kuomintang. While T. V. Soong and Soong Mei-ling participated in the negotiations that led to Chiang's release and, paradoxically, to confirmation of his role as China's wartime leader, H. H. K'ung temporarily assumed political authority at Nanking by order of the Central Political Council. The united front and the spirit of patriotism after 1937 even led to a degree of reconciliation among the Soong sisters. In the spring of 1940 they flew together from Hong Kong to Chungking, where Soong Ch'ing-ling was the guest of honor at a lawn Soong family [140] party given by Chiang Kai-shek. The influence of the Soong family on the style of political life in Nationalist China was strongest in the early 1940's. In particular, T. V. Soong began to emerge once again as a prominent figure about 1940. After negotiating credits in the United States, he flew to Chungking in 1942 to become minister of foreign affairs. About this time, Wei Tao-ming (q.v.), whose wife, Cheng Yii-hsiu (q.v.), was a close friend of Soong Mei-ling, became ambassador to the United States. T. V. Soong continued to be a major figure in China's diplomacy and international relations throughout the Second World War. During these years, many of the governmentrelated business enterprises in which T. V. Soong had important interests were directed by his two younger brothers. The image of the Soong family was at its best abroad, at least in North America, in 1942-43, when Soong Mei-ling made a triumphal and much-publicized trip to the United States and Canada to win popular support for Nationalist China and Chiang Kai-shek. The highlights of her journey were an address to a joint session of the United States Congress in February 1943 and an address to the Canadian Parliament in June of that year. After her return to Chungking in the summer of 1943, Soong Mei-ling continued to function as her husband's English interpreter and adviser in wartime dealings with Western officials. At war's end, T. V. Soong became president of the Executive Yuan and chairman of the Supreme National Economic Council. The postwar period, however, brought a general decline in the influence of the Soong family. H. H. K'ung, then nearly 65, in effect retired from public life. T. V. Soong, now the target of widespread criticism because of the deteriorating economic situation in Nationalistcontrolled areas, resigned to become governor of Kwangtung in September 1947. Soong Mei-ling's magic touch also failed, and a whirlwind flight to Washington late in 1948 on a mission to secure American aid had no result. Soong Ch'ing-ling remained at her home in Shanghai, becoming the moving spirit in the China Welfare Fund, which channeled funds to Communist-related organizations, and the center of a small group of people who were opposed to Chiang Kai-shek and who supported the policies of Mao Tse-tung. H. H. K'ung and his_wife moved to the United States in 1948, for Soong Ai-ling had become ill. With the establishment of the Central People's Government at Peking in October 1949, Soong Ch'ing-ling was rewarded with a number of official posts. Her role in the People's Republic of China after 1949 was basically symbolic, representing the continuity of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary movement and the Chinese Communist revolution. Soong Mei-ling left the United States in January 1950 to join her husband in Taiwan. H. H. K'ung and his wife remained in the United States, although K'ung made two trips to Taiwan before his death in August 1967. T. V. Soong and T. L. Soong also established residence in the United States. T. A. Soong served as chairman of the board of directors of the Bank of Canton; he traveled frequently between San Francisco, where he maintained a residence, and Hong Kong, where the bank was registered. He died in February 1969. The fortunes of the Soong family reflect the social reorientation of republican China during the period between the world wars. Within the context of Chinese politics, the Soongs' rise to power was not unrelated to the fact that they had family roots in two provinces that were of key importance in Kuomintang politics —Kwangtung and Chekiang. That rise also was spurred by Soong Ch'ing-ling's marriage to Sun Yat-sen. Without that relationship, it is doubtful that other members of the family could have achieved such a high level of prominence as they did. On the other hand, it is also doubtful that the political leaders who married into the family could have established firmly based governments without the cooperation of the family's financial men, especially T. V. Soong. The prominence of the Soong family also was related to its personal ties to the United States through education and religion. However, the prominence of the Soong family in public life was not sustained into the next generation. The two most prominent Soong sisters, Ch'ing-ling and Meiling, were childless; the children of Soong Ai-ling made no impact on the affairs of China; and the three daughters of T. V. Soong married Chinese who lived outside China and outside the mainstream of Chinese affairs.