The mother of modern China

She married Sun Yatsen, became a Communist and died as China�s honorary chairperson. Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore takes a look at the life of Soong Qingling

“Once upon a time in distant China, there were three sisters,” opens the 1997 historical drama The Soong Sisters. “One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country.”
Directed by Hong Kong film-maker Mabel Cheung, The Soong Sisters tracks the lives of three real-life siblings, powerful women who lived through – and largely influenced – major upheavals in China in the last century.
Soong Ailing – the lover of money – married Kung Hsiang-hsi, a director of the Bank of China. Soong Meiling – the lover of power – married Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party. And Soong Qingling – the lover of the Chinese nation – married the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Republic of China.
Together Ailing, Meiling, and Qingling represent China’s major ideological forces: capitalism, nationalism and communism, respectively. But of the three sisters, it is Soong Qingling (depicted in the movie by the iconic actress Maggie Cheung) who captured the public’s imagination, becoming in the process a political It Girl, national treasure and historical heroine.
The “mother of modern China”, as she is known, wed Sun Yat-sen in 1915, the man heralded with overthrowing the feudalistic, old-fashioned and elitist Manchu dynasty just four years earlier. As a widow, following her husband’s death from liver disease a decade later in 1925, Madame Sun Yat-sen became an important champion for Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party.
To some Soong was China’s ‘conscience’, having broken ties with the Nationalist Party that her husband had founded, proclaiming it had strayed from his original ideals and intentions. To others, she was a politically naive traitor and ‘bird in a lacquered cage’, who was used and exploited by the Communists as a crucial link to the past and a route to legitimacy.
One thing is certain. As the Communist Party apologist Israel Epstein – a great friend of Soong’s – once stated: “Soong Qingling personifies modern China… [She] personally participated in all stages of the Chinese revolution.”
In his 1993 biography Woman in World History: Soong Qingling, Epstein describes her as possessing a rare “internationalist and bicultural thinking” combined with patriotism. The latter was her “strong and eternal root… not only reflected in her political stance and actions but also suffused her entire mind and body.”
Chinese dream
The daughter of a Bible salesman and missionary, Soong was born in 1893 in Shanghai. Charlie Soong, her father, had spent years in the United States being trained as a missionary before returning to spread Christianity. In 1890 he started a Shanghai publishing house, printing cheap bibles in colloquial Chinese – and became rich. His business empire soon expanded to include food and textiles.
Showing the determination, stubbornness and will that would define her long life, Soong ignored their concerns and married Sun in 1915. Although younger, richer, and at times offended by his lack of cleanliness, Soong became a much-loved companion and confidant to Sun, a revolutionary born into a peasant family. In an era when many respectable Chinese women were still kept behind shuttered doors, she also became a highly visible political figure. In her biography Madame Sun Yatsen, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday state that Soong became the earliest example in the world of a woman behaving like a “First Lady”.
In the early 1920, Soong’s initiatives included conducting studies of the squalid conditions of female factory workers, the founding of women’s clubs and heading up the Women’s Institute of Political Training. As well as providing a refuge for women fleeing arranged marriages, the Institute promoted the idea that women, like men, were equal benefactors of China’s political future and must be educated as such. Chinese women, she wrote in later life, must be unshackled from the three traditional obediences: to their fathers, their husbands, and their sons.—BBC

The mother of modern China

She married Sun Yatsen, became a Communist and died as China�s honorary chairperson. Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore takes a look at the life of Soong Qingling

Once upon a time in distant China, there were three sisters, opens the 1997 historical drama The Soong Sisters. One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country. Directed by Hong Kong film-maker Mabel Cheung, The Soong Sisters tracks the lives of three real-life siblings, powerful women who lived through and largely influenced major upheavals in China in the last century. Soong Ailing the lover of money married Kung Hsiang-hsi, a director of the Bank of China. Soong Meiling the lover of power married Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party. And Soong Qingling the lover of the Chinese nation married the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Republic of China. Together Ailing, Meiling, and Qingling represent Chinas major ideological forces: capitalism, nationalism and communism, respectively. But of the three sisters, it is Soong Qingling (depicted in the movie by the iconic actress Maggie Cheung) who captured the publics imagination, becoming in the process a political It Girl, national treasure and historical heroine. The mother of modern China, as she is known, wed Sun Yat-sen in 1915, the man heralded with overthrowing the feudalistic, old-fashioned and elitist Manchu dynasty just four years earlier. As a widow, following her husbands death from liver disease a decade later in 1925, Madame Sun Yat-sen became an important champion for Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party. To some Soong was Chinas conscience, having broken ties with the Nationalist Party that her husband had founded, proclaiming it had strayed from his original ideals and intentions. To others, she was a politically naive traitor and bird in a lacquered cage, who was used and exploited by the Communists as a crucial link to the past and a route to legitimacy. One thing is certain. As the Communist Party apologist Israel Epstein a great friend of Soongs once stated: Soong Qingling personifies modern China [She] personally participated in all stages of the Chinese revolution. In his 1993 biography Woman in World History: Soong Qingling, Epstein describes her as possessing a rare internationalist and bicultural thinking combined with patriotism. The latter was her strong and eternal root not only reflected in her political stance and actions but also suffused her entire mind and body. Chinese dream The daughter of a Bible salesman and missionary, Soong was born in 1893 in Shanghai. Charlie Soong, her father, had spent years in the United States being trained as a missionary before returning to spread Christianity. In 1890 he started a Shanghai publishing house, printing cheap bibles in colloquial Chinese and became rich. His business empire soon expanded to include food and textiles. Showing the determination, stubbornness and will that would define her long life, Soong ignored their concerns and married Sun in 1915. Although younger, richer, and at times offended by his lack of cleanliness, Soong became a much-loved companion and confidant to Sun, a revolutionary born into a peasant family. In an era when many respectable Chinese women were still kept behind shuttered doors, she also became a highly visible political figure. In her biography Madame Sun Yatsen, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday state that Soong became the earliest example in the world of a woman behaving like a First Lady. In the early 1920, Soongs initiatives included conducting studies of the squalid conditions of female factory workers, the founding of womens clubs and heading up the Womens Institute of Political Training. As well as providing a refuge for women fleeing arranged marriages, the Institute promoted the idea that women, like men, were equal benefactors of Chinas political future and must be educated as such. Chinese women, she wrote in later life, must be unshackled from the three traditional obediences: to their fathers, their husbands, and their sons.BBC