Soong May-ling

Soong May-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, was a Chinese political figure, diplomat and wife of Chiang Kai-shek. Educated in the United States and fluent in English, she became a prominent international advocate for the Nationalist government.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War she appealed for foreign aid and addressed the United States Congress. Her public influence was substantial, though her family’s wealth and role in authoritarian Nationalist politics remain controversial.

Jung Chang’s Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister 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.