The Soong sisters were the most famous sisters in 20th-century China and possibly beyond. The eldest, Ei-ling, was one of China’s richest women, a tough unofficial advisor to Premier Chiang Kai-shek and married to Chiang’s finance minister, the billionaire HH Kung. The middle sister, Ching-ling was known as Madame Sun, married to one of the founders of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, then “Red sister” as vice president of China under Mao. The youngest, May-ling, married Mao’s great rival in the unification of China, Generalissimo Chiang and became one of his closest advisors, rallying the Chinese in the war against Japan.
From left, Ei-Ling, May-Ling and Ching-Ling in 1940. Photo: Supplied
Each would make a biography in her own right. Together, their achievements eclipse other well-known siblings like the Mitfords.
Jung Chang, whose Wild Swans (1991) sold 13 million copies, tells their story in her latest “Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister”. Her “Wild Swans” told a story of China through three generations of women in her family; here she tells the story through the three women, sometimes loving, sometimes feuding, but united by family.
Of the three, it is Ching-ling and May-ling - Red Sister and Little Sister - who are the focus. Ei-ling, the eldest, took on the role she believed God had given her, making money to keep the family going. If money was skimmed off government contracts, well, it was in a good cause.
Wealthy, powerful and charismatic, the Soong sisters, Photo: Supplied
Ching-ling married Sun, 25 years her senior, enamoured by his mission, to elevate China. She soon discovered his main aim was to elevate himself, says Jung. When Sun and his entourage were surrounded by assassins, Sun escaped to a waiting warship leaving Ching-ling. His pregnant wife and a servant were hunted through the streets of Canton until she miscarries. When she meets her husband again, she is no longer his young rich wife but the toughened half of a political relationship.
Jung Chang's new book examines the three sisters who changed China. Photo: Supplied
After his death in 1925, May-ling became a Communist sympathiser. In Moscow, she met the love of her life Deng Yan-da, a politician of considerable charisma and vision who advocated a third way between the hardline Communists and the power-driven Nationalists. When he was assassinated, Ching-ling blamed her brother-in-law. After the Soviets ordered Chinese communists to go into partnership with Chiang’s government, she gritted her teeth, for the sake of her family and the revolution. She toured hospitals and war zones with her sisters and appeared alongside Chiang, but always unsmiling. Jung recounts how the General once stood ram-rod straight next to her at a party hoping the cameras would capture a smile from her, conveying him some legitimacy. Madame Sun stared for the full hour off to one side. Sometimes it was hard to know who hated Chiang more; Red Sister or the Japanese.
May-ling was the vivacious sister who loved the social whirl. Then Ei-ling, ever the family organiser, decided she should be married to the rising Chiang. He was severe, a loner and military enforcer who mistrusted everyone. Their marriage proved surprisingly successful. Chiang listened to her counsel, depended on her support. She, in turn, moved from being appalled by encounters with ordinary Chinese to being their champion, rallying support during the Japanese war.
It is in the quiet domestic moments rather than moments of high politics that Jung excels – such as the moment Chiang broke off peace talks with Mao to take May-ling on a date weekend. Mao, suspecting a trap, sought safety with the Soviets; the married couple were picnicking in the country. Chiang gifted May-ling “a string of pearls” which turned out to be a giant rural estate, shaped like jewellery. But, this intertwining of wealth, politics and family was part of the Soong’s undoing. They were dogged by corruption allegations, their wealth an affront to a nation exhausted by Civil War and Japanese invasion.
One of the issues of a biography of women married to famous men is how to deal with the men. Ei-ling's husband Kung is largely ignored, a minor historical figure. Chiang is deftly drawn. But Sun overshadows the first third of the story so it feels like his biography which in fact it had been. Jung set out to research Sun but found herself drawn to the sisters. It makes the opening chapters a struggle.
Author Jung Chang Photo: Supplied
Added to that, Jung has always been an oppositional writer. She loves debunking myths. Wild Swans, was as much a rebuke to Communist propaganda, as it was a family history. Her biography of Mao reads like a takedown of Party myths. Jung can’t go past a standard view without wanting to overturn it. That may be a worthy impulse but a reader feels caught in the middle of an historical argument at times.
Sun, for example, may be revered by Communists, but Jung’s Sun is self-centred, dangerous, a coward, morally bankrupt, self-aggrandising and politically without ideas or vision. So much for the “Father of Modern China”.
But for all that, the middle section, in which the sisters put on a united front against Japan, while each hoping for a different outcome in the struggle with the Communists, is compelling. There is Ei-ling sending “care packs” to her communist sister as the Reds close in on Shanghai. Or May-ling shutting down a government investigation into fraud allegations against her older sister accused of ripping off government contracts in the middle of war. Family was family, after all.
