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A myth turns 104
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SOONG MEI-LING (宋美龄), who celebrated her 104th birthday on Tuesday, remains a fascinating, mythical figure, even though the “Chiang Dynasty" ended decades ago.
Wife of China's former strongman Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石), the centenarian witnessed the power struggles and bloodshed of China's early republican years.
A member of one of China's most powerful and wealthy families, foreign educated, sister to a former “premier" and finance minister, sister-in-law to the revered leader Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) and another “premier", Soong — who is now witnessing her third century — has spent much of her life chained to China's, as well as Taiwan Province's, history.
What her role actually was, however, is perhaps more difficult to pin down.
But the fact that politicians, historians and the general public disagree on the scale of her contribution only serves to show that Soong and the circles she moved in continue to fascinate people.
“People love her, people hate her, they think she's a goddess, a dragon lady... In the States you have the Kennedys, and England has a royal family... [the Soongs] are very similar," says Laura Tyson, a journalist researching a biography of Soong.
“She's a very complicated, multidimensional woman," says Lin Po-wen, a journalist and long-time Soong watcher.
Born in Shanghai in 1897 to wealthy printer Charles Jones Soong and his wife, Soong Mei-ling was one of the few women during the era to receive formal education. She spent 10 years in the United States, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1917.
Ten years later, her marriage to Chiang broadened her family's political and economic clout. Soon after her marriage in 1927 she became the darling of the West. In 1937, Time named the couple“Man and Wife of the Year".
During World War II, she played an active role in drawing foreign attention to China's War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945).
An eloquent speaker, Soong galvanized the US Congress, which she addressed in 1943. The speech bolstered Allied support for China.
She befriended Time and Life magazine publisher Henry Luce, who became the core of the US “China lobby", and was a frequent guest of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt at the White House.
“When you look at her in the context of her era she was quite revolutionary. An educated woman," says Diana Lary, a military and social historian at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
“The attention she drew to the war in China had an amazing impact abroad," she says.
Other historians have been less kind to Soong.
Sterling Seagrave, whose 1985 book The Soong Dynasty chronicles the history of her family, describes her as a silently complicit partner in her husband's regime.
“She was full of ideas and energy, but there was a limit to what she could achieve by herself. Chiang proffered power," Seagraves wrote, citing the Chinese adage about the three Soong sisters that “one loved money, one loved power and one loved China" and referring, respectively, to Ai-ling, Mei-ling and Ching-ling.
Laura Tyson says controversy persists over Soong's political views during the Chiang era.
“She talked about how wonderful democracy was, but tolerated a regime that was anything but democratic," she says.
But the image of Soong as an ambitious political player is perhaps an oversimplified one, says Tyson.
“I don't think she was personally or politically ambitious... she had charisma, she had charm, she was a marvellous talker... I think she knew that and she used that," Tyson says.
Soong's recent reclusivity doesn't make it easy to clarify these and other questions about her role in many historical developments.
Since Soong moved to New York in 1975 following her husband's death, she and her family have closely guarded her privacy and limited her contact with the media.
Her rare public appearances are for her pet causes, such as the National Palace Museum's travelling exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1996.
Although she has been largely out of sight for the last 25 years, she is not out of mind for people who attended a birthday party organized by Taiwan's “Women's League” on March 2.
Despite the reverence shown at the party, Soong's influence is now, observers say, largely historical.
“Her age, her dynasty is gone," comments Lin Po-wen.(SD-Agencies)
The Soong family
Father: Charles Jones Soong (宋耀如), 1866-1918, was a Methodist missionary in Shanghai. He resigned from missionary work in 1892 and thereafter was a successful merchant.
Brother: Soong Tzu-wen (宋子文), better known as T V Soong, 1894-1971, occupied several official positions in the Kuomintang government and, after 1949, of the Taiwan authorities, including governor of the Central Bank of China and minister of finance (1928-31, 1932-33); minister of foreign affairs (1942-45); and “president” of the “Executive Yuan” (1945-47).
Sister: Soong Ai-ling (宋霭龄), 1890-1973, married to KMT (Kuomintang) senior official Kung Hsiang-hsi (孔祥熙) and engaged in child welfare work.
Sister: Soong Ching-ling (宋庆龄), 1892-1981, married to Sun Yat-sen in Japan in 1914. She started to serve as vice chairwoman of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China when the PRC was founded in 1949, and remained a State leader of the PRC until her death.
(SD-Agencies)
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