By the middle of the second world war, May-ling Soong was the world’s most powerful woman, at the centre of events in China’s history and its relationship with the USA.
By the middle of the second world war, May-ling Soong was the world’s most powerful woman, at the centre of events in China’s history and its relationship with the USA. Hers is an engrossing life which spanned the 20th century and included a cast of extraordinary admirers, from Chinese warlords to Churchill. ‘I think your bark is worse than your bite,’ she cooed at him during the Cairo conference.
Born in 1897, she was one of three sisters whose lives and marriages would dominate Chinese politics during the first half of the 20th century. The Last Empress is a misleading title. May-ling Soong was very much a creature of the moment. She had almost nothing in common with China’s traditional past and she proved irrelevant to its future.
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