(Song Qingling)

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Soong.

 

Rosamond Soong Ching-ling 宋慶齡
Honorary Chairman of the People's Republic of China named on 16 May 1981
Acting Chairman of the Standing Committee of 4th National People's Congress
In office 6 July 1976 - 5 March 1978 (Acting)
Preceded by	Zhu De
Succeeded by	Ye Jianying
Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 4th and 5th National People's Congress
In office January 1975 - 29 May 1981
Co-Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China Served alongside: Dong Biwu
In office 27 April 1959 - 1975
President	Liu Shaoqi (until 1968)
Preceded by	Zhu De
Succeeded by	position abolished
First Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 1st National People's Congress
In office 27 September 1954 - April 1959
Preceded by	position created
Succeeded by	Lin Boqu
Vice Chairman of the Central People's Government of PRC
In office 1 October 1949 - 27 September 1954
President	Mao Zedong
Succeeded by	Zhu De
Born	27 January 1893(1893-01-27) Huangpu, Shanghai, Qing Dynasty
Died	29 May 1981 (aged 88) Beijing, People's Republic of China
Nationality	Chinese
Political party	Kuomintang (1919-1947) Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang (1948-1981) Communist Party of China (1981)
Spouse(s)	Sun Yat-sen
Relations	Charlie Soong (father) Ni Kwei-Tseng (mother) Soong Ai-ling (elder sister) Soong May-ling (younger sister) Soong Tse-ven (younger brother) Soong Tse-liang (young brother) Soong Tse-an (younger brother)
Alma mater	McTyeire School Wesleyan College Victoria University

Soong Ching-ling
Traditional Chinese	宋慶齡
Simplified Chinese	宋庆龄
Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Sòng Qìnglíng - Wade–Giles Sung Ch'ing-ling

Soong Ch'ing-ling (simplified Chinese: 宋庆龄; traditional Chinese: 宋慶齡; pinyin: Sòng Qìnglíng; Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ing-ling) (27 January 1893 – 29 May 1981), also known as Madame Sun Yat-sen, was one of the three Soong sisters—who, along with their husbands, were amongst China's most significant political figures of the early 20th century. She was the Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China. She was the first non-royal woman to officially become head of state of China, acting as Co-Chairman of the Republic from 1968 until 1972. She again became head of state in 1981, briefly before her death, as President of China. Soong is sometimes regarded as Asia's first female non-monarchial head of state, although her title of Honorary President of the People's Republic of China was purely ceremonial.

 

Biography

She was born to the wealthy businessman and missionary Charlie Soong in Nanshi (a part of present-day Huangpu District), Shanghai, attended McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, and graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, United States. Her Christian name was Rosamond (in her early years, she signed her letters as Rosamonde Soong^[1]).

She married Sun Yat Sen in Japan on 25 October 1915; he had previously been married to Lu Muzhen. Ching-ling's parents greatly opposed the match, as Dr. Sun was 26 years her senior. After Sun's death in 1925, she was elected to the Kuomintang (KMT) Central Executive Committee in 1926. However, she exiled herself to Moscow after the expulsion of the Communists from the KMT in 1927.

Soong reconciled with the KMT during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). She did not join the party, but rather was part of the united front heading up the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang. In 1939, she founded the China Defense League, which later became the China Welfare Institute. The committee now focuses on maternal and pediatric healthcare, preschool education, and other children's issues.

During the Chinese Civil War, she sided with the Communists.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, she became the Vice Chair of the People's Republic of China (now translated as "Vice President"), Head of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association and Honorary President of the All-China Women's Federation. In 1951 she was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize (Lenin Peace Prize after destalinization).

In the early 1950s, she founded the magazine, China Reconstructs, now known as China Today, with the help of Israel Epstein. This magazine is published monthly in six languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Arabic and Spanish). In 1953, a collection of her writings, Struggle for New China, was published.

She became the first female Chairman and President of the People's Republic of China. From 1968 to 1972 she acted jointly with Dong Biwu as head of state.

On 16 May 1981, two weeks before her death, she was admitted to the Communist Party and was named Honorary President of the People's Republic of China. She is the only person ever to hold this title.

 

Museums

Soong Ching-ling obtained a mansion in Beijing in 1963 where she lived and worked for the rest of her life and received many dignitaries. After her death the site was converted into the Former Residence of Soong Ching-ling as a museum and memorial; rooms and furniture are kept as she had used them, and memorabilia are displayed. Her former residence in Shanghai has also been converted into a memorial museum.

 

Media Portrayal

In the 1997 Hong Kong movie The Soong Sisters (宋家皇朝), she is portrayed by Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung.

In the 2009 mainland China movie "The Founding of a Republic" (建國大業), She was portrayed by Xu Qing.

 

 

Soong Ching-ling (1890-1981) was a prominent figure in the Chinese Communist government. She served as a vice chairman in the government from 1949 to 1975. Soong Ching-ling served as head of a national woman's organization and of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association after the Communist victory in China. She was awarded the 1951 Stalin Peace Prize.   Soong Ching-ling was also known as Madame Sun Yat-sen. She was the second wife of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic (see Sun Yat-sen). She worked with him in Japan and later married him there. After his death in 1925, Soong Ching-ling rose to a high position in the Chinese government. When Chiang Kai-shek, the president of the Chinese Nationalist government, broke with the Chinese Communists in 1927, she left China and lived in Moscow (see Chiang Kai-shek). She remained in exile until Communist leaders joined the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party, in a common front against the Japanese forces that invaded China in 1937.   Soong Ching-ling, the daughter of Charles Jones Soong, was born in Kunshan, Jiangsu. She attended high school in Shanghai and graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga.

The Soong Ching-Ling Foundation     "The aim of the Foundation is to carry forward the spirit of love for children and concern for their healthy growth in body and mind which she displayed during her life-time and to contribute to the cause of children's culture, education, scientific knowledge and welfare, and to help promote the unification of China, the safeguarding of world peace and friendship among nations."

 

 

Gallery

 

	Click on Picture to enlarge
	Soong Ching-ling accompanied Sun Yat-sen in 1924 on his final trip to Beijing.	Her house in Beijing is now a museum.

Click on Picture to enlarge

 

Wikipedia

 

 

Soong Ching-Ling

(1893-1981)
(Madame Sun Yat-Sen)

Honorary President of the People's Republic of China
Leader of the Women's Department of the Kuomintang

 

Soong Ching-Ling was born in Shanghai on the 27th of January in 1893 to well-educated, Christian parents. Before marrying Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Ching-ling travelled to the United States for her education; she and her three sisters became the first Chinese girls to be educated in the states. At the age of eighteen, Ching-ling began to speak out against the conditions of women in her country in a non-violent manner which expressed her ideals of Liberty and Equality. For the next seven decades, Soong Ching-ling became an active character within both the political and social arenas of Chinese culture. She came to be known as "the Mother of China" by both the main political parties, the Kuomintang and the Communists.

 

A Brief Timeline of the Life of Soong Ching-Ling
1893	Born.
1915	Marries Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the first Chinese Republic. Together they struggle to bring social and economic order to the chaos of post-Imperial China.
1924	Elected head of the Women's Department of the Kuomintang.
1925	Dr. Sun Yat-sen dies. Soong Ching-Ling devotes the rest of her life to upholding her husband's ideals by becoming the most passionate and prominent opponent of Chiang Kai-shek.
1932	Founds the China League for Civil Rights.
1938	Founds China Defence League.
1949	Offered the leadership position of the Kuomintang, which she turns down.
	Becomes the Vice-President of the Central People's Government Council as well as the Honorary President of the All-China Women's Federation.
1950	Creates the China Welfare Institute.
1952	Founds China Reconstructs magazine.
1957	Travels to Moscow with Chairman Mao for the Conference of World Communist Parties.
1981	Named Honorary President of the People's Republic of China.
	Dies of Leukaemia in Peking.

 

Soong Ching-Ling as an early champion of Chinese Women's Liberation

When Soong Ching-Ling was a student in the United States she began to seriously consider the conditions of women in China. The first and foremost Chinese practice that she singled out was the issue of arranged marriages. Through the influences of Western emancipation, Ching-Ling tackled this institution by declaring that the abolition of arranged marriages would further the liberation of both women and men in China.

When she married Sun Yat-sen in 1915 she not only became his wife but a strong political collegue of his. Up until that time women were basically invisible in the eyes of society. Few women would show their faces in public and would rarely accompany their husbands to any social gathering. In a biography of Soong Ching-Ling, Jung Chang writes that Ching-Ling was the first Chinese woman to appear in public with her husband and that she became the first consort of a political leader anywhere in the world to act as "First Lady."

Politically, Ching-Ling was a leading force behind the reorganization of the Kuomintang as well as in the shift away from the western powers towards Russia. Then in 1924 she was made head of the Womens' Department of the Party. She viewed that Chinese Women's Liberation was an inseparable part of the Chinese revolution-her views therefore set the tone for the radical line on the question of women in China.

Early in her career she divided her time between working in the government and working on the affairs of women. One of her major achievements during this time was the founding of the Women's Political Training School in 1927 - here she gave numerous talks on the importance of women joining the revolution as well as on the liberation of women in China. In the 1950s and 1960s she was very active in the official women's movement. Her ideals, along with the creation of the All-China Women's Federation in 1949 helped to shape the policies of China pertaining to women.

Source:

• Jung Chang, Mme. Sun Yat-sen. Penguin Books, 1986.