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8 FOREIGN PM, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1941 FOREIGN There's a Soong Sister Behind Every Power in China [[image]] The three famous Soong sisters: left to right, Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, 42, wife of China's war leader; Mme. Sun Yat-sen, 50, widow of the Chinese Republic's founder; and Mme. H. H. Kung, 52, wife of China's Finance Minister. A brother, T. V. Soong, 49, financial expert and chairman of the board of the Bank of China, completes the Soong "dynasty." The Soongs, with their in-laws, make up one of China's wealthiest and most influential families. One Speaks for Government, Another for Financial Interests and the Third for the Communists This is the ninth of ten articles on conditions in China after three years of war. Copyright, 1941, by The Newspaper PM, Inc., in the United States, Canada and all the countries in the International Copyright Union. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly forbidden. By ROBERT NEVILLE PM Exclusive HONG KONG (By Air Mail).--To write about China and not mention the Soongs would be like writing about Wisconsin and leaving out the La Follettes. For the Soong family, counting sisters, husbands and brothers, is indeed China. The three Soong sisters are, above all, remarkable in that they wield an influence the like of which history has rarely known. Whether through design or not, these three beautiful women separately represent all the powerful factions of present-day China. Mme. H. H. Kung, the eldest--who, on the death of their mother, virtually brought up the other two girls as her own daughter--is a financier in her own right and represents the powerful commercial class of China. She is the wife of China's Finance Minister. Mme. Sun Yat-sen is an open partisan of the Communists, the sole big opposition party of China. As the widow of China's revered leader, her position is unassailable. Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, the youngest, subscribes to the Kuomintang, which is now all-powerful in China. Her influence in China is more direct and more widely recognized than is Mrs. Roosevelt's in America. Blood Thicker Than Politics In other countries three sisters with such opposing and pronounced views might not be on speaking terms but in China family ties still are much too binding to let politics interfere. Last summer the Sisters Soong made a display of the family as well as the political united front by appearing together in Chungking. Mme. Sun, whose past remarks about Chiang Kai-shek have scarcely been complimentary, was even photographed with the Generalissimo. When I came to China all three sisters were in Hong Kong. Mme. Sun and Mme. Kung make it their permanent home, and Mme. Chiang had come down for medical treatment. Mme. Sun lives in a modest flat in Kowloon, across the bay from Victoria. Her chief work is now with the China Defense League, which raises money for badly needed medical supplies. Last summer she was named a State Councillor of China to take the place of Wang Ching-wei, who had deserted to the Japanese to head the puppet Nanking government. While in Chungking she made a speech which was rated as very moving. It apparently, however, failed to move the censor, who promptly spiked it. Obviously Mme. Sun feels she can work in greater freedom in British-owned Hong Kong than in Chungking under the control of her brother-in-law. Hard Working First Lady Mme. Kung is a woman of the old Chinese order, a woman in whom the sense of family dominates every other consideration. She is the only one of the Soong sisters to have children. it strikes one as odd that Mme. Chiang should have a Southern drawl, even though she was partly reared in Georgia. She is a fluent, brilliant conversationalist, an especially charming hostess in a land where hospitality is second nature and without doubt the most striking First Lady of any land. A newspaperman at Chungking likened her to Anne Morrow Lindbergh; certainly she is not only an extremely able wife but also a very talented writer. At Chungking she works indefatigably among Chinese women. She loathes dirt and has done much to clean up the more obvious types of filth. I asked Mme. Chiang, who was once head of China's air force, about American help in the air. She was certain that aviators and ground crews as well as machines were wanted. She said that it was also necessary that plenty of spare parts be sent. Mme. Kung asked if I could not possibly do something about getting fliers as well as planes for China. Mme. Chiang doubted if Chinese pilots could handle the swift military planes now being turned out. She also said she had letters from American-born Chinese aviators who would like to fight for China if only they could be assured of not losing their U. S. citizenship. She wondered also if something could not be done about that. TOMORROW: Guerilla Warfare is China's Best Hope to Beat the Stalemate. [[image]] The Soong sisters hid their political differences to present a united front in Chungking last summer after Japanese planes had bombed the city mercilessly. They inspected ruins and hospitals. Photos by HB Syndicate and Black Star
