Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister

Jung Chang tells the intertwined lives of the three Soong sisters, daughters of a wealthy Christian family whose marriages placed them at the centre of twentieth-century Chinese politics. Ai-ling married financier and government minister H. H. Kung, Ching-ling married revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, and May-ling became the wife and political partner of Chiang Kai-shek. Their family story moves through the fall of the Qing, the republican experiment, civil war, Japanese invasion and the Communist victory of 1949.

The sisters’ loyalties increasingly diverged: Ching-ling supported the Communists, while Ai-ling and May-ling remained associated with the Nationalist government and eventually lived outside mainland China. Chang combines political biography with an account of wealth, ambition, rivalry and enduring attachment within one family. The book uses the sisters’ public roles and private correspondence to examine how personal relationships intersected with revolution, war and competing visions of modern China.