H. H. Kung

H. H. Kung was a Chinese banker, businessman and Nationalist politician who served in senior financial offices, including minister of finance and premier. Through marriage he was connected to the influential Soong family.

Kung played a major role in financing the Nationalist government during war and economic crisis. His career was also associated with allegations of corruption, family privilege and the concentration of wealth within the ruling elite. Kung comes from the connection between this individual life and the larger political, social or cultural changes of the period, rather than from the headline episode alone.

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.