Soong Ch'ing-ling (1892-), was the wife of Sun Yat-sen. She was active in social welfare work, and after 1949 she held a variety of posts in the People's Republic of China.

The second daughter of Charles Jones Soong (q.v.), Soong Ch'ing-ling was born in Shanghai. Like her elder sister, Soong Ai-ling, she received her early education at the fashionable McTyeire School for Girls. In 1908 she accompanied her younger sister, Soong Mei-ling (q.v.), to the United States and entered Wesleyan College for Women, a Methodist institution in Macon, Georgia, where Soong Ai-ling was a senior. In 1913, having graduated from Wesleyan, Soong Ch'ing-ling returned to China. By the time of Soong Ch'ing-ling's return, Soong Ai-ling had become Sun Yat-sen's English-language secretary. Sun's political fortunes were at a low ebb. Yuan Shih-k'ai had turned against the revolutionaries, and the so-called second revolution launched by the republican forces against Yuan had failed almost as soon as it had begun in mid-1913. Sun had to leave China to take refuge in Japan in August 1913. When Soong Ai-ling decided to marry H. H. K'ung (q.v.) in Tokyo, she relinquished her position in Sun's entourage to Soong Ch'ing-ling. Direct contact with Sun Yat-sen soon transformed admiration and respect into love. Soong Ch'ing-ling agreed to marry Sun even though he was 26 years her senior and had two children from a previous marriage. The ceremony took place on 25 October 1914 in Tokyo.

From the time of their marriage until Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, Soong Ch'ing-ling was his constant companion, aide, and confidante. As the wife of Sun Yat-sen, she spent most of her married life in Shanghai and Canton as Sun traveled between the two cities in his struggle against a variety of political and military opponents. For a time, Sun was actively in control of the revolutionary military regime at Canton, established as a center of political opposition to the government at Peking. This period was followed by an interlude of enforced retirement in his Rue Moliere residence in the French concession at Shanghai, where Sun devoted much attention to the formulation and refinement of his political doctrines. During these ten years, Soong Ch'ing-ling played the varied roles of political assistant, personal secretary, and wife with grace and dignity. As the ranking woman associated with the government in south China, Soong Ch'ing-ling had a harrowing experience at Canton in June 1922. Toward the end of 1920, with the aid of the army of Ch'en Chiung-ming (q.v.), Sun Yat-sen returned to Canton to resume the charge of the revolutionary government there. In May 1921 he assumed the post of president extraordinary of China on election by the rump parliament meeting in Canton. He then turned to planning a northern expedition; but Ch'en Chiung-ming, his chief military lieutenant, opposed the scheme. The disagreement eventually led to Ch'en's open revolt. In the early hours of 16 June 1922, shortly after midnight, the rebels laid siege to Sun's presidential headquarters. Sun, unprepared, had to rely on his small bodyguard, which was no match for the attackers. In her reminiscences, Soong Ch'ing-ling recalled that she was awakened by her husband after he received the report of the siege. She refused to leave the house with him because her presence might complicate his escape, and she insisted that he leave first and proceed to the gunboat Yung-feng for safety. Sun left hurriedly for the safety of a warship. By then, Ch'en Chiung-ming's forces had reached the presidential mansion which was located on a small hill. Soong Ch'ing-ling remained there until noon on 16 June, when three guards escorted her out of the house by way of the back courtyard. They mixed with the crowd that had gathered, and the few possessions she carried soon were taken by the rebel soldiers. Fortunately, Soong Ch'ing-ling was not identified, and she eventually took shelter in a small house, where she collapsed from the strain. She finally reached safety in Shameen and went to Whampoa on 18 June. Sun Yat-sen had to leave the warship for Shanghai again in August 1922. At that time, he started measures for a major reorganization of the Kuomintang. A manifesto in the name of the Kuomintang was issued on 1 January 1923 restating the Three People's Principles as the party's basic platform. Later in January, Sun had his historic meeting with the Soviet Union representative Adolf Joffe, and the two men issued a joint declaration. Soong Ch'ingling participated in all these events, but, being of a retiring character, she neither took part in politics nor expressed any opinion which would show her own political orientation at the time.

Meanwhile, forces loyal to Sun Yat-sen had ousted Ch'en Chiung-ming from Canton. Sun and his wife returned there, and once again Sun assumed charge of the military government, with the title of Generalissimo. The reorganization of the Kuomintang moved forward steadily, and the move was institutionalized at the party's first congress in January 1924. The establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy, with Chiang Kai-shek as president, soon followed. In August the Central Bank of China was inaugurated at Canton, and Soong Ch'ing-ling's younger brother, T. V. Soong (q.v.), was named its general manager.

Although Sun Yat-sen was again preparing for the long-awaited northern expedition from Canton, in November 1924 he accepted the invitation of the political and military leaders in Peking to pay a visit to north China to discuss national affairs. Accompanied by Soong Ch'ingling and a sizeable staff, which included Wang Ching-wei, Eugene Ch'en, Li Lieh-chun (qq.v.) and others, Sun left Canton on 13 November 1924, traveling to Peking by way of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. He arrived at Tientsin on 4 December. Then already ill, he proceeded to Peking for medical treatment, and he died there on 12 March 1925. From the time they left Canton in mid-November 1924 until his death, Soong Ch'ing-ling was constantly at the side of her husband. Her stepson, Sun Fo (q.v.), hastened to Peking at the news of Sun Yat-sen's serious illness, and he was with his father during his last days.

On his deathbed, Sun Yat-sen left a political will in which he called on his followers to continue his unfinished revolutionary work. He also left a family will bequeathing all his personal possessions and books, as well as his house in Shanghai, to Soong Ch'ing-ling.

While Sun Yat-sen lived, Soong Ch'ing-ling had not openly taken part in the political affairs of the day. In 1925, as the widow of the founder of the Chinese republic—the living representative, in a sense, of the leader of the Kuomintang —circumstances soon forced her to assume a more active political role. This change in role was also required because of signs of factionalism within the party that her husband had led. At the Second National Congress of the Kuomintang in January 1926, she was elected to the Central Executive Committee. Ho Hsiang-ning (q.v.), the widow of Liao Chungk'ai (q.v.), was also elected to that group; while Ch'en Pi-chun (q.v.), the wife of Wang Ching-wei, was elected to the Central Supervisory Committee. Soong Ch'ing-ling was reelected to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang at every successive congress through the Sixth National Congress at Chungking in 1945, the last held on the mainland. In November 1926, after the Northern Expedition had captured Wuhan, the National Government at Canton sent an advance party of five men—Sun Fo, Eugene Ch'en, T. V. Soong, Hsu Ch'ien (q.v.), and Comintern representative Michael Borodin—to Wuhan to investigate the question of moving the government there. Soong Ch'ing-ling accompanied the group, which proceeded northward by way of Nanchang, then recently captured by Chiang Kai-shek. The group was given a great welcome to Nanchang by Chiang, and it finally arrived at Wuhan by boat on 10 December 1926. Soong Ch'ing-ling herself preceded them by two days, for she flew by plane from Nanchang to Wuhan on 8 December. On 13 December 1926 members of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and of the State Council of the National Government who were in Wuhan met and decided on the establishment of a joint council to serve as the interim authority pending the complete removal of the government to Wuhan. The joint council was headed by Hsu Ch'ien, and Soong Ch'ing-ling was a member. This post marked her first official participation in the government as distinguished from the party. In March 1927 the National Government was established in Wuhan, and Soong Ch'ing-ling became a member of the State Council. By this time, differences between the Wuhan leaders and those who had moved forward from Nanchang to Nanking had become pronounced. Following the beginning of a purge of Communist elements in Shanghai and elsewhere in the lower Yangtze valley, a rival national government was set up in Nanking on 18 April 1927. Although Hu Han-min (q.v.) was chairman of that government, Chiang Kai-shek controlled it. For a time, the Wuhan and Nanking factions threatened to settle their differences on the battlefield. The situation was saved when the Wuhan group also started to rid itself of Communists. On 13 July 1927, the Chinese Communist party declared that it would withdraw from the Wuhan government, though its members would remain in the Kuomintang. The next day, ostensibly because of her disapproval of this Wuhan development, Soong Ch'ing-ling issued an announcement stating that she would no longer be actively associated with the new policies, which she believed were doing "violence to Sun Yat-sen's ideas and ideals." She then returned to her home in Shanghai. In late August, she slipped aboard a Russian steamer and sailed, together with Eugene Ch'en and others, to Vladivostok. The group then proceeded by train to Moscow. Judging from her public statement in Shanghai before she left for Moscow, it was clear that Soong Ch'ing-ling identified herself with the left Kuomintang, the branch of the party that she regarded as the true bearer of Sun Yat-sen's spirit, and that she had become pro-Communist in her political outlook. When the Chinese Communists staged a revolt at Nanchang on 1 August 1927, they used the name of a so-called revolutionary committee to attempt to legitimize the action. The names of Soong Ch'ing-ling, Eugene Ch'en, and Teng Yen-ta (q.v.) were included on the list of committee members, but it was generally believed in China that Soong Ch'ing-ling had not authorized the use of her name.

Personal, as well as political frustrations, marked the year 1927 for Soong Ch'ing-ling. In December, her younger sister, Mei-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek. This union was as strongly opposed by Soong Ch'ing-ling as it was supported by Soong Ai-ling. Soong Ch'ingling remained in the Soviet Union for nearly two years. She returned to China by way of Berlin in May 1929 to attend the state burial of Sun Yat-sen in the impressive mausoleum built for him at Nanking. On the eve of her return, she issued a statement in which she made it clear that her attendance at the burial ceremony was not to be interpreted as in any sense implying a modification of her views. She said that she would continue to abstain from direct or indirect contact with the Kuomintang as long as its leadership was opposed to the so-called "three great policies" of Sun Yat-sen, namely, alliance with the Soviet Union, cooperation between the Kuomintang and members of the Chinese Communist party, and the advancement of the interests of Chinese workers and peasants.

After the burial ceremony, Soong Ch'ing-ling retired to Shanghai, but she remained there for only a short time. During 1930 and 1931 she toured Europe. She then returned to China, where she resided in Shanghai from 1932 through 1937. When Teng Yen-ta was arrested by the National Government late in 1931, she tried unsuccessfully to save his life. With Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei (q.v.) and others, she organized the China League for Civil Rights and constituted herself a champion for that cause. She also attempted to intervene on behalf of Chinese Communists arrested by the National Government, notably Ch'en Keng and Liao Ch'engchih (qq.v.). After the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese war in July 1937, Soong Ch'ing-ling moved to Hong Kong, where, in June 1938, she founded the China Defense League for wartime medical relief and child welfare work. Through the league organization, some outside medical aid was channeled to the Communist base areas in the hinterland of China. Notable in this connection was the International Peace Hospital, established in Shensi by a Canadian surgeon, Dr. Norman Bethune.

Although family relations among the Soongs remained strained for a number of years after 1927, the spirit of wartime patriotism led to a measure of reconciliation. In April 1940 Soong Ch'ing-ling and her two sisters flew from Hong Kong to the wartime capital of Chungking. There, as the widow of Sun Yat-sen, Soong Ch'ing-ling was honored at a lawn party given by Chiang Kai-shek. The three Soong sisters traveled about Chungking and nearby areas of Szechwan to visit schools and hospitals and to inspect orphanages and air defense dugouts. At the war's end, Soong Ch'ing-ling returned to Shanghai. In late 1945 she organized the China Welfare Fund, a continuation of the wartime China Defense League established in Hong Kong. Beneficiaries of the fund were virtually limited to Communist-related organizations. While living in Shanghai in the postwar period, Soong Ch'ing-ling also attracted a small but active group of Western admirers in China, all of whom were opposed to Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists and were increasingly sympathetic to the Chinese Communist cause. In 1948, when a Kuomintang splinter group was organized in Hong Kong as the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee under the leadership of such prominent anti-Chiang figures as Li Chi-shen, Ho Hsiang-ning, Feng Yü-hsiang (qq.v.) and others, Soong Ch'ing-ling was named honorary chairman of the group. In September 1949 Soong Ch'ing-ling was in Peiping as a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference "by special invitation." That meeting led to the establishment of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China. In the new political structure, Soong Ch'ing-ling became one of three non-Communist vice chairmen of the government (the other two being Li Chi-shen and Chang Lan). In 1954, when the Peking government underwent reorganization at the time of the adoption of a new national constitution, Chu Teh became the sole vice chairman of the government, and Soong Ch'ing-ling became a vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, then headed by Liu Shao-ch'i. In the reorganization of 1959, when Liu Shao-ch'i succeeded Mao Tse-tung as chief of state, two vice chairmen, then both well into their seventies, were elected: Soong Ch'ing-ling and Tung Pi-wu (q.v.), who represented the eldest generation of leaders in the Chinese Communist movement.

Soong Ch'ing-ling was elected deputy, from the municipality of Shanghai, to the first National People's Congress in 1954; and she was reelected to the second (1958) and third (1964) congresses. She was vice chairman of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association after 1949, and in 1954 she became chairman of that organization. After 1950 she served as chairman of the China Welfare Institute (the former China Welfare Fund), and after 1951 she was chairman of the Chinese People's National Committee for the Protection of Children. In 1957 she was made honorary chairman of the Women's Federation of China. In 1950, at the second World Peace Congress in Warsaw, she was elected a member of the World Peace Council. In 1951 she was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. In her various official capacities, Soong Ch'ing-ling made several trips outside China after 1950. In December 1952 she led the Chinese delegation to the meeting of the World Peace Congress in Vienna, and on her return journey to China, she was received by Stalin in Moscow in January 1953. From December 1955 to February 1956 she headed a Chinese mission to India, Burma, and Pakistan. Later in 1956, she led a Chinese delegation to Indonesia. In February 1964, as a vice chairman of the Central People's Government and accompanied by Chou En-lai as premier, she visited Ceylon.

Soong Ch'ing-ling's position in Peking after 1949 stemmed from her unique personal role as the widow of Sun Yat-sen and from the general Chinese Communist impulse to link the People's Republic of China with the earlier revolutionary movement symbolized by Sun. In important respects, Soong Ch'ing-ling was treated with great deference and respect, though her position was clearly symbolic. She lived in Shanghai, where the house left to her by Sun Yat-sen was thoroughly renovated by the Communist authorities shortly after they gained power in China. Occasionally she broadcasted statements and public messages intended for consumption both within China and abroad. She also wrote occasional articles for the English-language magazine China Reconstructs, published by the China Welfare Institute. In 1953 a collection of her articles and speeches was published in English under the title The Struggle for New China.

The disruption associated with the so-called Cultural Revolution in China affected Soong Ch'ing-ling's life. In September 1966 there were reports that Red Guards accused her of living a luxurious life in contrast to that of common peasants and workers, and ransacked her house in Shanghai. In 1967, however, she made public appearances at Peking, where, in the absence of the chief of state Liu Shao-ch'i, she received foreign visitors to China.