Song Qingling

Soong Ch'ing-ling (27 January 1893 – 29 May 1981; Christian name Rosamonde or Rosamond) was a Chinese politician and activist. She was the wife of Sun Yat-sen, therefore known by Madame Sun Yat-sen and the "Mother of Modern China". A member of the Soong family, she and her family played a significant role in shaping the Republic of China. As a prominent leader of the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT), she founded the Revolutionary Committee of the KMT. She entered the Communist government in 1949, and was the only female, non-Communist head of state of the People's Republic of China. She was named Honorary Chairman of the People's Republic of China and admitted to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a few weeks before her death in 1981.

Born in Shanghai and educated in the United States, she married Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China and the KMT, as his third wife in 1915 and became a strong advocate for Sun's KMT-CCP coalition, opposing Chiang Kai-shek's split with the CCP in 1927. During the Second Sino-Japanese War she joined her sisters in China's wartime capital Chongqing to demonstrate national unity and support for the KMT-CCP alliance. However, during the subsequent Chinese Civil War she continued her support to the CCP, leading to a break in ties with her family. After the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, she held several prominent positions in the Communist government, including Vice Chairman of the PRC (1949–1954; 1959–1975) and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (1954–1959; 1975–1981). She travelled abroad during the early 1950s, representing China at a number of international events.

Following the purge of President Liu Shaoqi in 1968, she and Dong Biwu as Vice Presidents became de facto Heads of State of China until 1972, when Dong was appointed Acting President. During the Cultural Revolution, Soong was protected from being purged, as the top name on A List of Cadres to Be Protected created by Zhou Enlai. Despite this, her Beijing home was invaded by Red Guards, and her parents' tombs in Shanghai were destroyed. Soong survived the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution but appeared less frequently after 1976. As the acting Chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1976 to 1978, Soong was again the acting Head of State, as the office of President had been abolished. During her final illness in May 1981, she was given the special title of "Honorary Chairman of the People's Republic of China".

Names and titles

As with the Chinese naming tradition, Soong was the family name, Ching-ling was the first name. Her name is also rendered as Song Qingling in Pinyin. In some early literature, she was referred to as Chung-ling Song, a name she used during her time at Wesleyan. While studying there, she adopted the Christian name "Rosamonde" or "Rosamond." Ching-ling was named after Rosamonde Ricaud, the daughter of the Methodist minister who baptised her father in the United States in 1880. Among her close friends at Wesleyan, however, she was more commonly known as Suzie or Suzi.

After marrying Sun Yat-sen in 1915, she became known as Madame Sun Yat-sen. Her daughter-in-law and the wife of Sun Fo, Chen Suk-ying, preferred to be called Mrs Sun, rather than Madame Sun, to avoid confusion. As the wife and widow of the founder of the Chinese Republic, she was honoured as the "mother of modern China," by both major political parties in China, KMT and CCP. The KMT, which hailed Sun Yat-sen as the "father of the nation," extended this honour to her as "the mother of the nation." The CCP also occasionally used this title to refer to her. However, she was not Sun's only wife. Lu Muzhen was also sometimes described with the same term.

Following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, she assumed a largely symbolic role in the Communist government in Beijing. Premier Zhou Enlai revered her as "the treasure of the country." She was awarded the title of the "Honorary Chairman of the People's Republic of China" in 1981 before her death.

Early life and education

Soong Ching-ling was born in Shanghai, China on 27 January 1893, though the exact location of her birth remains debated. Her father, Charlie Soong, was a businessman and missionary originally from Wenchang, Hainan. Influenced by his uncle, who ran a grocery store in the United States, Charlie became enamoured with America when he was young. He was converted into Christianity in Wilmington, North Carolina in November 1880 and returned to China for missionary works in 1886. Her mother, Ni Kwei-tseng, was born in Shanghai to a missionary family originally from Yuyao, Zhejiang, which upheld a Christian tradition dating back to the Ming dynasty. She was educated at a high school run by American missionaries in Shanghai, where she met Charlie Soong. Married in 1890, the couple initially engaged in missionary work and business in Kunshan, later continuing their missionary efforts in Chuansha.

Charlie was deeply committed to education in the United States for his daughters. He wanted them to receive a Methodist education, so he enrolled them at McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, where Ching-ling studied from 1904 to 1907. Acting on the advice of his missionary friend William Burke, who had ties to the Mulberry Street United Methodist Church in Macon, Charlie sent his eldest daughter Ai-ling to Wesleyan College in 1904.

Ching-ling was among the first government-funded female Chinese students to study in the United States. The group, consisting of ten male and four female students, departed from Shanghai on 1 August 1907 and arrived in Seattle on 28 August, under the escort of Wen Bingzhong, the director of the Foreign Office of the Viceroy of Liangjiang. Ching-ling first attended school in Summit, New Jersey, to study Latin and French to fulfil Wesleyan's entrance requirements. She joined Ai-ling as a full-time college student at Wesleyan in the autumn of 1908, with their youngest sister Mei-ling accompanying them despite being only ten years old.

Although the Soong sisters spent most of their time on campus, they also travelled across the United States, navigating the prevailing anti-Chinese sentiments of the time. They were warmly received by local communities in the American South. In the summer of 1910, Ching-ling and Mei-ling attended summer school together at Fairmount College. In the summer of 1912, they participated in a church-sponsored YMCA conference in Montreat, North Carolina. During several Christmas holidays, they visited Washington, D.C., where they were hosted as guests of the Chinese ambassador.

Leftist Kuomintang

Marriage to Sun Yat-sen

After graduating, Ching-ling's elder sister, Ai-ling, returned to Shanghai in 1908 and became the secretary to Sun Yat-sen. Sun became fascinated with Ai-ling, constantly gazing at her, although Ai-ling did not reciprocate his feelings in the same way. Ching-ling graduated from Wesleyan in 1913, and returned to China via Yokohama, Japan, where she met Sun. Ai-ling resigned in 1914 to marry H. H. Kung, passing the position on to Ching-ling, who admired Sun as the hero who founded the Chinese Republic. In the summer of 1915, Ching-ling returned to Shanghai, asking her parents for their permission to marry Sun, which shocked the family. She was 22 and he was 49 at the time. Ching-ling was confined at home in Shanghai, during which Sun divorced with his wife Lu Mu-zhen.

Despite objections from her father, Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen on 25 October 1915. There were limited witnesses in their wedding ceremony in Tokyo, which included Wada Mizu, who provided his home for the wedding, Liao Zhong-kai and Liao's 11-year-old daughter Cynthia. The Soong family chased Ching-ling to Tokyo, attempting to dissuade her from the marriage, with her father Charlie even appealing to the Japanese government to denounce Sun. Additionally, many of Sun's colleagues did not acknowledge Ching-ling as his wife, referring to her as Miss Soong rather than Mrs Sun. As Ching-ling could only speak Shanghainese and English, her husband had to talk with her in English rather than Chinese.