Introduction
Dragon lady.
Chinese.
Saint.
Christian.
Sinner.
Swindler.
Vamp.
Leader.
Westerner.
At one time or another, each of these
epithets has been applied to Madame Chiang Kai-shek, intriguingly,
often in the same sentence.
The disparity of these terms is indicative
of the extraordinarily complex persona of one of the twentieth
century’s most powerful and influential women.
Madame Chiang’s
successes and failures reverberate still in both the United States and
Greater China.
The purpose of this paper is to examine Madame Chiang’s impact on
Chinese-U.S. relations during the cataclysmic years of World War II.
Specifically, it seeks to answer the following question: What was
Madame Chiang’s true impact on U.S. policy during World War II?
To
find an answer, we will look at three specific areas of U.S. policy
that Madame Chiang actively attempted to influence: military policy,
foreign policy, and public policy.
It must be noted that during World
War II these three areas of policy converged to a large degree because
foreign and public policy were often directly related to military
policy and the war effort, and therefore, to each other.
To understand Madame Chiang’s actual impact in these three areas,
we will look at her interactions with American military men (e.g.,
General Joseph Stilwell, General Claire Chennault, Franklin Roosevelt),
American political leaders (e.g., Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt,
Wendell Willkie, Senators and Congressmen), American public opinion
leaders (e.g., Henry Luce, writers and editors for various magazines
and newspapers), world leaders (e.g., Franklin Roosevelt, Winston
Churchill), and the American public.
President Roosevelt is included
in the military category as well as the political and world-leader
2
categories due to his position as Commander-in-Chief of the armed
services.
The conclusion reached in this paper is that, despite her
undoubted skill, cunning, and persuasiveness, Madame Chiang’s actual
impact on U.S. policy during World War II was quite limited.
Specifically, while she was influential in the administration’s choice
of tactics for prosecuting the war in the China theatre, she had little
real influence on overall U. S. war strategy or China’s perceived
importance within it.
In the area of U.S. foreign policy and the
cementing of China’s position in the post-war world, her efforts were
almost completely unsuccessful.
While the Roosevelt administration
consistently espoused the importance of China, much to the chagrin of
Churchill and the British, China’s actual influence over world events
was essentially nil.
What influence the Chiangs did have, and whatever
goodwill they had built up with the Roosevelt administration during the
first half of the war, was eventually undermined by the end of the war
by a pervasive reputation of fecklessness and rapacity on the part of
the Kuomintang government and the Chiangs themselves.
In the area of
U.S. public policy, Madame Chiang was able to use the frenzy of
publicity surrounding her 1943 tour of the U.S. to help transform
public opinion of Chinese and Chinese-Americans, and to redress
specific legislation that unfairly targeted Chinese immigrants.
It was
in this arena that Madame Chiang was most successful in influencing
specific U.S. policy during World War II.
3
Background
Madame Chiang was born Soong Mei Ling, the youngest daughter of C.
V. “Charlie” Soong, a Hakka Chinese Methodist minister.
Charlie Soong
was born in China and educated as a missionary at Vanderbilt University
in
Tennessee.
He
lived
and
ministered
in
North
returning to China to make his fortune selling bibles.
Carolina
before
Charlie Soong’s
six offspring – three boys and three girls – would come to dominate
China.
Sterling Seagrave’s book detailing the history of the Soong
parents and siblings would with some accuracy be entitled The Soong
Dynasty.
The Soong sisters alone would wield considerable political power.
Ai Ling, the eldest, married China’s finance minister, H. H. Kung, who
was the richest man is China.
Qing Ling, the next eldest, married Sun
Yat Sen, the President of the Chinese Republic and the founder of the
Koumintang, who led the revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty in
1911.
Mei Ling married Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, Sun Yat Sen’s
aide and successor as leader of the Kumintang.
It would be said of the
three sisters, respectively, that one loved money, one loved China, and
one loved power.1
That Mei Ling loved and knew how to use power was one
of her defining characteristics.
In addition to the powerful Soong
sisters, Mei Ling’s eldest brother, T. V. Soong, was a major figure in
the Koumintang government and was, at one time, considered the richest
man in the world.
1
Mark Steyn, Half Dragon Lady, Half Georgia Peach: Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1898-2003). Atlantic
Monthly, 293.1 (Jan-Feb 2004), 44.
4
By
the
time
Mei
Ling
was
born,
in
1898,
themselves the wealthiest family in Shanghai.
the
Soongs
were
Mei Ling was remembered
as the first Chinese girl in Shanghai to ride a bicycle. 2
In 1908, at
the age of 10, Mei Ling moved to Macon, Georgia, accompanying her
sister Ai Ling who was attending Wesleyan College.
Mei Ling learned
English there and spoke for the rest of her life with the lilt of a
southern
accent.
Mei
Ling
attended
college
herself
at
Wellesley
College in Massachusetts, graduating with the highest academic honors.
By the time Mei Ling returned to China she was thoroughly Americanized.
She often said, “The only thing Oriental about me is my face.”
Upon
3
arriving back in China, she needed a tutor to re-educate her in her
mother tongue.
In 1922, Mei Ling met Chiang Kai-shek for the first time.
came to a Soong family dinner party with his wife, Jennie.
Chiang
It should
be noted that Jennie was Chiang’s second wife, it not being uncommon at
that time for prominent Chinese men to have more than one wife.
and
Mei
Ling
were
eventually
married
in
1927
after
Chiang
Chiang
had
consolidated his power, agreed to leave his second wife (having already
left
the
first)
and
agreed
to
become
a
Christian.
Much
has
been
written about whether Chiang’s relationship with Mei Ling was based on
love or political convenience.
No doubt, there was a strong desire for
Chiang
the
to
align
himself
with
powerful
and
wealthy
Soong
clan.
There was also an equally strong desire for the Soongs to cement their
political position by being aligned with the new leader of Nationalist
China.
After the aforementioned dinner party, Chiang told his wife
2
Sandy Donovan, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: Face of Modern China. (Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point
Books, 2007), 17.
3
Pico Iyer, A Singular Woman. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,526553,00.html. (Oct. 27,
2003) ,¶2.
5
Jennie: “I want the names Sun, Soong and Chiang to be linked tightly
together.” 4
In fact, his desire was so great that upon Sun Yat Sen’s
death in 1925 Chiang asked Mei Ling’s sister, Sun’s widow, Qing Ling,
to marry him.
She refused.
It is clear that Chiang’s marriage to Mei
Ling was politically advantageous for both sides.
There is little
evidence of passionate love in their courtship or married life.
In
fact, there were many rumors to the contrary and she intimated herself
that the relationship was non-sexual.
the
two
had
a
mutual
admiration
There is, however, no doubt that
and
deep
respect
for
Further, both were dynamic and physically attractive.
each
other.
Politics was at
the fore, but a level of personal devotion, if not necessarily love,
was definitely present.
During the 1930s Mei Ling – now fashioned “Madame” Chiang – first
emerged in the consciousness of the American public.
receiving
her
first
official
position
in
the
Not long after
Chinese
government
as
Secretary General of the Chinese Commission on Aeronautical Affairs in
1936,
she
conspicuous
incident.”
exhibited
personal
her
political
bravery
during
acumen,
an
event
assertiveness,
known
as
the
and
“Xian
Chiang Kai-shek, who was resting at a hot spring near Xian,
was abducted and held captive by Chang Hsueh-liang, a powerful warlord
and Chiang’s erstwhile vassal.
shek
–
who
was
virulently
Chang Hsueh-liang wanted Chiang Kai-
anti-communist
–
to
stop
fighting
the
Communists and instead work with them to resist the Japanese, who had
been
taking
over
increasing
amounts
of
Chinese
land.
Chiang
was
obdurate, which could easily have led to his execution; in fact, he
expected as much. Madame Chiang decided that she would go to Xian
personally to intercede and secure his release.
4
Donovan, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: Face of Modern China, 29.
Before departing she
6
resolved that “even if they were rude, I should not lose my temper but
talk to them as man to man.” 5
Her ability to talk “man to man” to even
the most powerful of world leaders would become another of her defining
characteristics.
Her
fortitude
was
displayed
when
she
handed
a
revolver to her Australian advisor, William Donald, who had accompanied
her to Xian, and ordered him to shoot her if she was taken captive.6
Chang Hsueh-liang said he would not let Chiang Kai-shek go until
he received a written pledge from him to cooperate with the Communists
against the Japanese. Chiang refused. Madame Chiang, however, satisfied
the captors by hinting that the Generalissimo would stop militarily
opposing the Communists.
She said: “Internal problems should be solved
by political means, not military force.” 7 This was hardly a resounding
guarantee given Chiang Kai-shek’s record of persecuting the Communists,
and it was far from saying he would cooperate with them. However, by
this time Chiang Kai-shek’s popularity and moral authority among the
Chinese people had soared; he was now popularly seen as a prisoner for
China.
A peaceful resolution was in every party’s best interest.
The
exact deals, payments, or guarantees made at Xian are not known, but
all parties, the Changs, the Nationalists, and the Communists, would
eventually be perceived as doing what was best for China. Madame Chiang
may not have been the only person capable of resolving the crisis, but
what is clear is that she did it with élan and as deft a diplomatic
touch as could be seen in the greatest of statesmen.
display was particularly impressive to Americans.
As a woman, this
Subsequently, the
Chiangs were named Time magazine’s Man and Wife of the Year for 1938,
LauraTyson Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady. (New York: Atlantic Monthly
Press, 2006), 126.
5
6
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 126.
7
Donovan, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: Face of Modern China, 61.
7
in large part due to the intercession of their champion, Chinese-born
Time publisher and Sinophile, Henry Luce.
In 1941 Luce and his wife –
future congresswoman Clare Booth Luce – visited the Chiangs in person
in Chungking.
Following the trip, Madame Chiang graced the cover of
Luce’s Life magazine, notably without her celebrated husband.
Influence on Military Policy
Madame Chiang’s influence on U. S. military policy towards China
during World War II can be analyzed in large part by observing her
interactions with two U.S. military leaders stationed in China: Colonel
(later
General)
Claire
Chennault
and
General
Joseph
Stilwell.
Her
efforts were strenuous and her role pivotal in the Chinese government’s
dialogue with, and between, the two U.S. soldiers regarding military
supplies, strategy, and tactics.
Madame
Chiang
had
inserted
By the time both men were in China,
herself
as
her
husband’s
official
interpreter and unofficial go-between for all U.S. relations.
As far
as America was concerned, she spoke for China.
Prior
to
the
start
of
the
Second
Sino-Japanese
war
in
1937,
Claire Chennault was a retired army major who had learned to fly in the
Army in World War I and had become Chief of Pursuit Training in the
Army Air Corp in the 1930s.
opinionated and irascible.
Nicknamed “old leather face,” he was
Admirers saw him as a daring, creative-
thinking maverick; detractors were upset by his unorthodox theories of
air
combat
that
challenged
the
views
of
the
Army
establishment.
Chennault first arrived in China in 1937 as a civilian “air advisor” to
Generalissimo Chaing Kai-shek. Chennault had strong views about the
role of airpower in China’s defense against Japanese aggression.
He
believed it could ultimately turn the tide and lead to a Chinese defeat
8
of Japan in China. The Chiangs adored the strategy, and the man; their
feelings
were
Commission
reciprocated.
on
Aeronautical
Madame
Affairs
Chiang
was
as
head
Chennault’s
of
the
boss.
Chinese
His
first
impression of her was overwhelming:
The Generalissimo’s wife, looking twenty years younger than
I had expected and speaking English in a rich Southern
drawl. This was an encounter from which I never recovered.
To this day I remain completely captivated.
That night I
wrote in my diary: “She will always be a princess to me.”8
Madame Chiang found Chennault’s title of major to be unbecoming a man
of his new stature.
She thought he should be at least a colonel.
He
was able to rectify this by convincing the governor of his home state
of Louisiana to make him a “colonel” on his staff.
Chennault
oversaw
the
training
of
Chinese
pilots
who
flew
an
assortment of decrepit planes that constituted China’s air force in the
late 1930s.
One of his first tasks was to convince Chinese pilots to
bail out of crippled planes.
One day, for example, Chennault saw five
crashes
pilots,
and
combat, die.
watched
several
who
were
supposedly
ready
for
The pilots believed that bailing out would be too great a
loss of face. 9
By late 1938, Chennault had begun plans to organize a
small squadron of mainly American volunteers to fly in defense of China.
Called the “American Volunteer Group” (AVG) and nicknamed the “Flying
Tigers,” the unit was officially authorized by President Roosevelt in
1941, eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The President’s
authorization allowed pilots from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army Air
Corps to resign and join the AVG with no loss of rank upon their return.
8
Claire Chennault, Way of a Fighter (1949), in Stephen R. MacKinnon, Americans in China and the
Chiangs, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang Kaishek and her China. (Norwalk, CT: EastBridge,
2005), 107-108.
9
Claire Lee Chennault: Lieutenant General, Untied States Army Air Corps.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/ clchenna.htm . (n.d.), ¶ 34.
9
Further, Roosevelt secretly authorized the AVG to conduct direct air
strikes against the Japanese mainland.
It has been conjectured that
the Japanese knew of this clandestine plan and that it may have been
one of the factors considered by the Japanese in their decision to
attack the American base at Pearl Harbor.10
The Chiangs and Chennault learned early – even before America
joined the war – that they would have to fight tooth and nail for every
bit of funding and matériel they would receive from America.
Chennault,
the Chiangs, and U. S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, imagined
the AVG as a 1,000 airplane armada including both fighters and bombers.
Bureaucratic, military, and political competition stymied their dream
however.
As a result, the AVG never had more than 100 fighters at
their disposal and only about 50 were in flying condition at any one
time. 11
Despite this, the Flying Tigers were extremely effective.
In
their first six months of operation, they downed 296 Japanese planes
and lost only eight of their own.
The AVG had the best victory-loss
ratio of any World War II combat unit.
Shortly afterward, in 1942, the
AVG was absorbed into the U.S. Army Air Corps as the Fourthteenth Air
Force,
The Flying Tigers were to a large degree mercenaries.
They would
be remembered as “a really tough bunch,” paid by the kill, receiving
300 dollars a week and a 500 dollar bonus for every Japanese plane shot
down. 12
Madame Chiang was named by Chennault as their Honorary Group
10
Michael Shaller, American Air Strategy in China, 1939-1941: The Origins of Clandestine Air Warfare.
American Quarterly, 28, 1. (Spring, 1976), 18.
11
General Claire Lee Chennault: An Unsung Masonic Hero. http://www.scottishrite.org/web/journalfiles/Issues/mar03/sinatra.htm. (March, 2003), ¶ 10.
Craig Nelson, The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid—America’s First World
War II Victory. (New York: Viking Press, 2002), 105.
12
10
Commander as well as their Staff Officer Liaison to the Generalissimo.
She
called
them
her
“boys,”
and
she
used
her
immense
charm
and
magnetism to moderate their rough behavior and to remind them what they
were fighting for.
In a speech to her boys in early 1942, she said:
We must have inner discipline so that we may have fully
developed characters. However, I am not trying to make you
little plaster saints and I am quite human enough to like
interesting people, but I do want you boys to remember one
thing: the whole of the Chinese nation has taken you to its
heart and I want you to conduct yourselves in a matter
worthy of the great traditions you have built up…. I trust
and I know you will act worthily wherever you are in
China.13
This speech was similar in tone to most of Madame Chiang’s speeches
during World War II. She clearly stated the hard reality and appealed
to Christian morality, reminding her audience to recognize right from
wrong.
Her moral overtones, her stark frankness, and her combination
of allure and charisma made her incredibly persuasive even to the most
hard-bitten
individuals.
British
novelist
Christopher
Isherwood
credited her with “an almost terrifying charm and poise.” 14
After one
such speech a U.S. Congressman confessed: “I never saw anything like it.
Madame Chiang had me on the verge of bursting into tears.” 15 Chennault
and the Flying Tigers were putty in her hands.
General Joseph Stilwell was the other principal American soldier
in China.
Stilwell, who had served as military attaché in China from
1935-1939, spoke fluent Chinese.
Joe”
to
his
soldiers,
based
on
He was known by the nickname “Uncle
his
noted
concern
for
individual
soldiers, and “Vinegar Joe” to the press, based on his acerbic comments.
13
Chiang Kai-shek, Resistence and Reconstruction. (Freeport, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1943),
284.
14
Jonathon Fenby, Revelation. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,526554,00.html. (Oct.
27, 2003), ¶ 1.
15
Iyer, A Singular Woman, ¶ 1.
11
Army
Chief
of
Staff
George
Marshall
was
a
strong
proponent
of
Stilwell’s and sent him back to China after Pearl Harbor to serve as
Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek, who was the Supreme Allied Commander
in the China theatre.
On paper, Stilwell was the perfect choice.
In
reality, he was a solid soldier who did not have the temperament to
deal with the labyrinthine politics within China. Given the secondary
nature of Stilwell’s command in Burma, China, and India, the vagueness
of
the
power
relationship
between
Stilwell
and
Chiang,
and
the
conflicting goals of the Chiangs, Stilwell, and Chennault, the China
theatre was a frustrating and bitter brew for Stilwell, and it showed.
Chennault
and
ground troops.
the
Chiangs
were
proponents
of
air
power
over
They were convinced that air power alone, with ground
troops protecting their bases, could turn the tide.
Stilwell felt this
strategy was highly flawed. This fundamental strategic disagreement put
Chennault
and
Stilwell
despised each other. 16
at
odds.
Both
men
were
hard
headed;
they
Chennault and Stilwell competed with each other
for supplies and support and for the ears of Chiang Kai-shek, whom
Stilwell
derisively
referred
to
as
the
“Peanut,”
Roosevelt, whom Stilwell considered “a flighty fool.”
competition
with
Chennault,
consistently at odds.
Stilwell
and
Chiang
and
17
Kai-shek
President
Beyond his
also
were
Stilwell’s power base vis-à-vis Chiang was the
fact that he was responsible for distribution of Lend-Lease payments
and matériel that supported the Chinese war effort. Stilwell pushed
Chiang
Kai-shek
hard
for
offensive
ground
action,
while
Chiang
was
essentially hoarding Lend-Lease disbursements to build up his armies
for an eventual assault on the Communists that he planned to execute
16
17
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 187.
Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945. (New York: Grove
Press, 1970, 1971), 410.
12
after an Allied defeat of Japan.
18
He dragged his heels and found
excuses to forestall the major ground offensives that Stilwell demanded.
He also ignored Stilwell’s proposals to join with the Communists to
defeat the common enemy.
risk
separating
his
Stilwell suggested. 19
Chiang never felt confident that he could
military
policy
from
his
domestic
policy
as
Chiang’s resistance to Stilwell was “never fixed
but changeable in proportion to what he thought Stilwell would be able
to obtain for him from America.”20
At the center of all these conflicts regarding military strategy,
tactics, and matériel stood Madame Chiang.
all parties.
She became confidante to both of the American soldiers
and to her husband alike.
with
the
She was the broker between
Generalissimo
Ostensibly, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder
and
Chennault,
but
she
also
mined
her
relationship with Stilwell to get the most she could for China from
Lend-Lease.
Stilwell, who was highly distrustful of Chiang Kai-shek
and the Koumintang, nevertheless found Madame Chiang “very charming,
highly intelligent, and sincere.” 21 In his diary, he described the woman
he referred to as “Madame Empress”:
Quick. Intelligent. Wants to get things done. Wishes she
was a man. Doesn’t think deeply, but catches on in a hurry.
Very frank and open.…A clever, brainy woman.…Direct,
forceful, energetic, loves power, eats up publicity and
flattery….No concession to the Western viewpoint….The
Chinese were always right; the foreigners were always
wrong.22
18
Guangqui Xu, The Issue of US Air Support for China during the Second World War, 1942-45, Journal of
Contemporary History, 36, 3. (July, 2001), 459.
19
John R. Miller, The Chiang-Stilwell Conflict 1942-1944, Military Affairs, 43, 2. (April 1979), 59.
20
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 307.
21
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 193.
22
Donovan, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: Face of Modern China, 68-69.
13
By 1943, Chiang Kai-shek had had enough of Stilwell’s perceived
lack of respect and iron-fisted control over Lend-Lease payments: he
undertook
a
campaign
for
Stilwell’s
removal.
Madame
Chiang
and
her
sister Ai Ling – whom Stilwell affectionately called “May” and “Ella” –
let
him
know
as
much.
They
met
with
him
and
discussed
in
conspiratorial tones about how ill-prepared the Chinese forces were and
how vital Stilwell was to solving China’s military problems.
just what Stilwell wanted to hear.
It was
He took it to mean that the women
wanted action and that he was at last making headway. 23
In the end,
their devotion to Stilwell may have been nothing more than a struggle
for power against their brother, T.V. Soong, whom they feared would get
greater control of Lend-Lease himself with Stilwell’s removal and make
a power play against both of their husbands. 24
discern,
against
but
the
that
Madame
middle
while
Chiang
had
the
being
seen
as
interests is not to be denied.
Madame
Chiang
soon
The truth is hard to
ability
to
unselfishly
play
all
supporting
ends
all
It was her gift.
found
that
playing
the
soldiers
off,
one
against the other, was not having the desired effect. Chennault wasn’t
getting the planes he needed and the Kumintang wasn’t getting the level
of military or Lend-Lease support that they deemed appropriate. The
culprits,
Roosevelt,
however,
were
Congress,
and
not
the
in
China,
U.S.
but
military
in
the
high
U.S.:
command
President
saw
though vital, as a secondary priority for conducting the war.
Chiang
resolved
herself
decision-making as well.
Wendell Willkie.
to
influence
these
sources
of
China,
Madame
military
Her first conquest in this realm would be
President Roosevelt sent Willkie, his unsuccessful
23
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 391.
24
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 390.
14
opponent in the 1940 election, on a worldwide trip in 1942 to help
reassure allies – who were at their lowest point in the war – that
America was committed to win.
By the time he arrived in China, the
Chiangs were determined to win over the handsome and rakish Willkie to
act as a powerful ambassador on their behalf back in America.
He was
smothered with parades, reviews, and receptions.
Willkie was bowled over by Madame Chiang.
was “the most charming woman he ever met.” 25
He declared that she
Willkie and Madame Chiang
were rumored to have had an affair during his trip.
The story, as
related by Willkie’s traveling companion, Gardner Cowles, publisher of
Look magazine, was that the two spirited away from a reception in
Willkie’s honor to her secret apartment where a tryst occurred. 26 When
Cowles saw Madame Chiang during her trip to the U.S. in 1943, she
allegedly told him in the privacy of her Waldorf suite: “You know, Mike,
if Wendell could be elected, then he and I would rule the world. I
would rule the Orient and Wendell would rule the Western world.” 27
The
veracity of these claims cannot be confirmed, but it is a matter of
record that Willkie became a champion for China and the Chiangs, and
that
he
and
Madame
Chiang
had
an
abiding,
affectionate
friendship
following his trip to China.
Madame
Chiang’s
ability
to
influence
events
one
political
or
military leader at a time was still not effective enough in meeting the
needs
of
the
Koumintang
government.
Therefore,
she
attempted
to
increase her influence by traveling in person directly to the source of
25
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 183.
26
China Matters, The Willkie/Soong May-Ling Affair.
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html. (November 1, 2005), ¶ 15.
27
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 210.
15
power: to the United States.
In late 1942, Madame Chiang made a trip
to the U.S. ostensibly for medical reasons: she suffered from multiple
medical problems including urticaria (hives), sinus infection, a bad
back – courtesy of a car wreck while visiting the battle front several
years before – and exhaustion.
stomach cancer.
It was also feared that she might have
Upon her arrival to the U.S., it became immediately
evident that medical care was only one purpose for her trip;
even
before entering her New York hospital she had first requested to see
Harry
Hopkins,
who
aside
from
being
the
advisor was also in charge of Lend-Lease.
President’s
most
intimate
The President teased Hopkins,
“You’d better watch your step, or before you know it she will have you
wound around her little finger.
You know how she charmed Wendell
Willkie….We might even provide you a bodyguard if you’d like one.” 28
Later, Roosevelt himself had a card table placed between himself and
Madame Chiang when they met in order to avoid being “vamped” as he put
it. 29
Such was Madame Chiang’s reputation for persuasion.
Once she had
been released from hospital, she set out on a tour of the United States
that allowed her to deliver her message directly to the President,
Congress, military brass, and millions of American citizens.
and
adulation
proportions.
for
Madame
Chiang
during
this
trip
Publicity
reached
huge
The media frenzy surrounding her was unparalleled.
This
was Madame Chiang at the height of her power and influence.
It has
been said that during 1942 and 1943 Madame Chiang was the most powerful
woman in the world.30
28
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 194.
29
Jonathon Fenby, Revelation. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,526554,00.html. ¶ 3.
30
Jonathon Fenby, Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost. (London: Simon and Schuster,
2003), 387.
16
Madame Chiang went first to the Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park,
New York.
House.
She proceeded from there to Washington, staying at the White
She would be remembered by the White House staff as the most
troublesome guest in all the years of the Roosevelt administration. 31
She
had
an
imperious
habit
of
clapping
her
hands
when
she
wanted
something. “This goes on all day,” said one staff member. “That Chinese
crowd has run us ragged.
They think they’re calling the coolies.” 32
She created problems for the President as well. While he and Madame
Chiang were consistent in many areas regarding China, Madame Chiang was
not going to lose the opportunity to remind him and the American people
that U.S. military support, in China’s opinion, was seriously lacking.
She
would
push
him,
in
private
and
in
public,
and
she
would
push
Congress and the American people as well to take affirmative action to
rectify U.S. military policy.
The centerpiece of Madame Chiang’s trip was an address to a joint
session of Congress on February 18, 1943.
She was the first Chinese
person, the first private citizen, and only the second woman to ever do
so.
She addressed each house separately.
Senate.
Her first speech was to the
It was shorter and less formal than her speech to the House of
Representatives.
She used the opportunity to remind the Senate that
China and the U.S. were fighting for the same cause and shared the same
ideals (i.e., the Four Freedoms).
She disarmed her audience up-front
by claiming that she was not a good extemporaneous speaker; stating,
“In fact, I am no speaker at all.” 33
She used an old Chinese parable to
powerfully remind her audience that it was one thing to have ideals, it
31
Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty. (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 386.
32
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 208.
33
Text of the Two Addresses Before Congress by Mme. Chaing Kai-shek, New York Times. (February 19,
1943).
17
was quite another to take action and implement them. The implication
was clear: China was taking action against Japan, while the U.S. was
not.
Her
afterward.
main
speech
was
to
the
House
of
Representatives
right
The themes were the same, but her appeals were lengthier,
more specific, and more direct.
She damned the U.S. war effort in Asia
with faint praise, thanking U.S. fighting men for dealing with the
“dreary drabness” of their assignments.
up
by
the
excitement
of
battle.
They
She said, “They are not buoyed
are
called
upon,
day
after
colorless day, to perform routine duties such as safeguarding defenses
and preparing for possible enemy action.” If the comparison between the
U.S. soldiers’ “possible” action to the Chinese soldiers’ actual action
was not clear enough, she laid it bare by invoking a Chinese proverb:
“It takes little effort to watch the other fellow carry the load.” 34
Once she had made the point that Americans should feel guilty for not
doing more in China, she went for the jugular by directly challenging
the Roosevelt administration’s military policy and priorities:
Again, now the prevailing opinion seems to consider the
defeat of the Japanese as of relative unimportance and that
Hitler is our first concern. This is not borne out by the
actual facts, nor is it to the interests of the United
Nations as a whole to allow Japan to continue, not only as
a vital potential threat but as a waiting sword of Damocles,
ready to descend at a moment’s notice.35
The speeches were masterful.
The
renowned
poet
Carl
They were simple, clear, and persuasive.
Sandburg
said
that
her
speeches
could
be
included in any “college textbook on politics, ethics, literature, the
art of discourse and speech. 36
She followed her congressional addresses
34
Text of the Two Addresses Before Congress by Mme. Chaing Kai-shek, New York Times. (February 19,
1943).
35
Text of the Two Addresses Before Congress by Mme. Chaing Kai-shek, New York Times. (February 19,
1943).
36
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 211.
18
with similar speeches in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and
San Francisco.
They were not repetitive speeches, but rather a series
of speeches, built one upon another, which kept her message relevant
and fresh.37
Madame
Chiang’s
speeches
to
Congress
and
the
public
were
galvanizing for China supporters, politicians, and the American public
to reassess the country’s military strategy and priorities.
obviously did not want this.
Roosevelt
Madame Chiang’s visit was becoming a
double-edged sword for his administration.
On one hand, it allowed
Roosevelt to showcase his vision of a democratic China cast as a major
post-war power and ruled by enlightened, attractive, Christian leaders.
On the other hand, it shone a bright light on fundamental strategic and
military
policy
disagreements
between
the
two
allied
partners;
and
Madame Chiang was holding the flashlight.
The fact that Madame Chiang was equal to the task of upstaging
Roosevelt, the master charmer, added to his dilemma. At a joint White
House press conference he held with her, he told the press that the U.S.
would deliver more planes and fuel to China “just as fast as the Lord
will let us.”
She added: “The President just said that ‘as soon as the
Lord will let us.’…Well, I might say—add on to that, ‘The Lord helps
those who help themselves.’” 38
the
Combined
Chiefs
of
Staff
She was maneuvering so effectively that
feared
she
might
be
successful
in
convincing the administration to make a fundamental change in its war
Daniel Marshall Haygood, Uncovering Henry Luce’s Agenda for China: A Comparative Analysis of Time,
Incorporated and otherMmedia Coverage of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s Ttrips to America (1943-1948).
Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2005), 141.
37
38
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 206.
19
strategy. 39
As The Christian Century summed it up, “She may even compel
reconsideration of the notion which prevails in high places that the
war in the Pacific is nothing more than a secondary scuffle in a global
conflict.” 40 Roosevelt, however, did not budge.
more
supplies
over
the
“Hump”
from
Burma
He eventually promised
and
more
planes
Chinese air force, but it fell far short of the Chiangs’ goals.
her
extended
U.S.
tour,
Roosevelt
concluded
that
Madame
for
the
During
Chiang
had
overstayed her welcome, thinking it best from his perspective that she
return to China as soon as possible. 41
As Morgenthau told his staff,
‘The President…is just crazy to get her out of the country.” 42
When she
did leave she had netted more aid money, hardware and supplies for
China; but she was frustrated and felt that she had failed in her
mission.43
Before Madame Chiang’s 1943 tour of the U.S. ended, the seeds of
her undoing, and the undoing of the Nationalist government, in the eyes
of the U. S. government and the American public were already being sown.
The dissonance between her large entourage, her royal demeanor, her
extravagant dresses, furs, and jewels and her requests for money for
“poor”
China
led
to
an
undercurrent
of
criticism.
Almost
simultaneously U.S. intelligence gathered stories of Madame Chiang’s
purchases of scores of shoes and $45,000 worth of furs, the Treasury
39
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 204.
40
T. Christopher Jesperson, Madame Chiang Kaishek and the Face of Sino-American Relations:
Personality and Gender Dynamics in Biliateral Diplomacy, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang
Kaishek and her China. (Norwalk, CT: EastBridge, 2005), 139.
41
Jesperson, Madame Chiang Kaishek and the Face of Sino-American Relations: Personality and Gender
Dynamics in Biliateral Diplomacy, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang Kaishek and her China, 140.
42
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty, 386.
43
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 238.
20
Department discovered that $867,000 of the aid funds that had been
collected on the trip had ended up in the private bank accounts of
members of her entourage, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote that
based on his sources, “The Soongs have been depicted as ‘money mad’ and
their desire to secure additional funds appears to prompt their every
move.” 44
The first damning public blow to the Nationalist reputation
came, surprisingly, from Luce’s Time magazine.
In the magazine’s March
22 issue, a story appeared on the famine in Henan province blaming the
Chinese army and its collection of grain tax for the catastrophe.
The
Chiangs had no firmer supporter and propagandist than Luce, but now
even he was starting to have second thoughts.
In a memo to senior
staff he articulated them: “I do not want to be found guilty of having
misled the American people – bringing their friendship for China to the
‘verge
of
sentimentality’
disillusionment’….” 45
which
will
‘inevitably
end
in
In May 1943, Pearl Buck highlighted in an article
in Luce’s Life magazine the lack of freedom in China and blamed the
corrupt Nationalist bureaucracy.
This lack of freedom in China was
linked directly to Madame Chiang by Ilona Ralf Sues, who wrote in her
1943 tell-all book, Sharks Fins and Millet, “Democracy to her is not
the inalienable right of the people, but a candy which the government
may
in
time
dole
out
as
a
reward
for
good
behavior.”
46
The
deterioration of Madame Chiang’s reputation in the U.S. started slowly
in
1943
but
gathered
steam
quickly.
By
1945,
her
reputation
had
suffered so much that Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1943 had admitted that
44
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 218, 220, 225.
45
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 231.
Ilona Ralph Sues, Shark’s Fins and Millet, in Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady,
247.
46
21
she treated Madame Chiang as she would her own daughter, commented to
the press, “She can talk beautifully about democracy but she does not
know how to live democratically.”47
Before her reputation had been impugned to a significant degree,
Madame Chiang reached the height of her political power in late 1943 at
the Cairo conference, where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek
met for a summit as Roosevelt and Churchill were en route to Teheran to
meet with Russia’s leader Joseph Stalin.
stage.
Madame Chiang took center
This was much to the chagrin of Eleanor Roosevelt who had been
told by her husband that no women were allowed.
sarcastically: “I wish you had let me fly out.
enjoyed Mme. Chiang more than you did….”
herself
into
the
discussions
at
Cairo
48
by
She wrote to him
I’m sure I would have
Madame Chiang insinuated
effectively
taking
over
translation duties for her husband, who spoke no English, from the
official translator.
Indeed, if Madame Chiang was considered the most
powerful woman in the world in 1943, the opinion was reinforced by the
official portraits of the Cairo conference.
with
Roosevelt,
Churchill,
and
her
husband.
She is pictured sitting
She
is
not
in
the
background or sitting next to her husband, but is effectively presented
as an equal to the others, co-regent of China, and the fourth “man” of
the summit.
Wendell Willkie a few months earlier had introduced her to
a Madison Square Garden audience as the “head” of her country. 49
This
was exactly the position she had been trying to cultivate going into
47
Mme. Chiang is Silent, New York Times. (December 6, 1945).
48
Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World
War II. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 473-474.
49
Mme. Chiang Voices China’s Resolution, The New York Times. (March 3, 1943).
22
Cairo.
Again, she literally spoke for China, but now on the world
stage.
On the surface, the Chiangs appeared to be quite successful at
Cairo.
It was a public relations boon and it had netted real military
commitments.
Roosevelt had promised to divert Japanese attention from
China by assaulting the Japanese in Burma and the Bay of Bengal in 1944.
The promises were ephemeral however.
the
Southeast
Asian
offensive
–
At Teheran, Operation Buccaneer –
was
shelved
in
favor
of
Operation
Overlord – the Normandy invasion – and other European objectives.
The
Chiangs had not only been unsuccessful at Cairo in trying to influence
U.S. military strategy, they had lost face.
be
seen
as
the
apex
of
Madame
Chiang’s
The Cairo conference can
political
power
and
the
beginning of the end for Chiang Kai-shek.50
Madame Chiang worked diligently during World War II to influence
U.S. military policy.
within
China
as
well
She proactively engaged America’s top soldiers
as
visiting
politicians
like
Wendell
Willkie.
During 1942 and 1943, she appealed directly to President Roosevelt, the
U.S. Congress, politicians, business leaders, and the American public.
The clash regarding military policy between China and the U.S. was
essentially over who was really in charge of Allied forces and Allied
financial and matériel investments inside of China.
envisioned
the
importation
of
the
American
“Chiang Kai-shek
Lend-Lease
matériel
to
support military actions under his command and direction, while the
Americans viewed the military aid only as a means to force China to
accept American military strategies in the China theatre irrespective
50
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty, 393.
23
of Chiang’s own judgment.” 51
Madame Chiang’s engagingness, charm, and
tenacity gained more attention, more money, and more war matériel for
China; however, she was never able to influence U.S. military policy in
any fundamental way.
decision-makers
that
She was neither able to convince U.S. military
Chiang
Kai-shek
should
have
a
freer
hand
with
troops and Lend-Lease, nor that the China theater was of anything but
secondary importance for winning a global, two-front war.
China
and
her
husband’s
regime
would
fulfill
the
In the end,
military
role
specifically provided for it by President Roosevelt and his military
brain trust.
Influence on Foreign Policy
Madame Chiang’s primary goal for influencing U.S. foreign policy
during World War II was to combat the British worldview.
Britain,
particularly its Prime Minister Winston Churchill, retained colonial
visions for the Far East and did not believe that China was, or should
be, fashioned a great power after the war.
was ludicrous.
He thought the very idea
He spoke of China’s inclusion as a member of the Big
Four world powers “an absolute farce.”52
British-Chinese rancor had its
seeds as far back as the Opium Wars in the 1840s.
mutual trust in the relationship.
There was little
“Chinese suspicion of British
motives was reciprocated by the British with a curious mixture of
condescension, if not contempt, towards the Chinese and a fear of a
Maochun Yu, The Dragon’s War: Allied Operations and the fate of China 1937-1947. (Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press, 2006), 171-172.
51
52
Steyn, Half Dragon Lady, Half Georgia Peach: Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1898-2003). Atlantic Monthly,
44.
24
reinvigorated China.”53 America was at the fulcrum, using its unmatched
power to decide which view held sway.
The difficulty of British-Chinese relations was typified by the
relationship between Madame Chiang and Winston Churchill.
The story of
how Churchill and Madame Chiang almost had their first meeting is at
once amusing and at the same time a study of two adversaries, masters
of the political agenda, circling each other looking for advantage.
In
1943, Churchill, who was in Washington staying at the White House,
invited Madame Chiang to meet with him there.
Madame Chiang resolved
privately that she “would not kow-tow” to Churchill.54
She pleaded
indisposition and invited Churchill instead to meet her in New York.
It was a stand off.
As Churchill told the story:
On this week-end was discussed the question of my meeting
Madame Chiang Kai-shek….She was at this time in New York,
and intimated that she would be glad to meet me there. … I
did not feel able to make so long a journey. The President
therefore invited the lady to lunch with him to meet me at
the White House. The invitation was refused with some
hauteur. Madame was of the opinion that I should make a
pilgrimage to New York. The President was somewhat vexed
that she had not adopted his plan. …I offered to go halfway
if she would do the same. This offer was however
considered facetious, so I never had the pleasure of
meeting this lady until the Cairo conference.55
Madame Chiang knew instinctively that if China was going to be a great
power she must insist on being treated with great public respect by the
British.
Given Britain’s imperialistic heritage in China, this was
non-negotiable as far as she was concerned.
She also knew that she was
competing directly with the British for U.S. aid and sympathy.
She was
already at a disadvantage here given the cultural empathy between
53
54
55
Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China 1941-1950. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 39.
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 233.
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (vol. 4): The Hinge of Fate. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1950), 797.
25
Britain and the U.S.
She hoped that if she could garner a higher level
of respect for herself, as the symbol of China, and combine it with an
appeal as a “spiritual ally” of America that she could get more than
her fair share for China versus Britain.56
Her insistence on respect
was of specific importance vis-à-vis Churchill himself, who was well
known as a man of nineteenth-century sensibilities, a believer in the
benefits of colonialism, and a noted racist who spoke scornfully to
Roosevelt of “little yellow men.”57
The Cairo conference would be the critical proving ground in the
British-Chinese struggle.
head.
The Chiangs and Churchill would go head-to-
That Churchill even had to engage the Chiangs at this level was
frustrating to him; he only resolved to do so at Roosevelt’s insistence.
He felt that the talks regarding China were “lengthy, complicated and
minor.”58
charms.
Even Churchill, however, was not immune to Madame Chiang’s
He noted when they finally did meet, “I had a very pleasant
conversation with Madame Chiang Kai-shek and found her a most
remarkable and charming person.”
59
Nevertheless, Britain’s priorities
for Asia at Cairo remained firmly centered on their colonial interests.
Their supreme objective was the recapture of Singapore followed by a
determination to keep the Japanese out of India.60
They also envisioned
Hong Kong returning to British sovereignty upon its recapture, whereas
56
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 202.
57
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 232.
58
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty, 394.
59
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (vol. 5): Closing the Ring. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1951), 329.
60
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty, 394.
26
the Chiangs envisioned Hong Kong as a free port under Chinese
sovereignty.61
It is not hard to believe that Churchill knew that his
appeasement of the Chiangs and Roosevelt at Cairo would be ephemeral.
It should have been obvious to all concerned, even at Cairo, that
Chinese objectives could not be fully supported when Europe was still
the agreed strategic priority.
Obvious to everyone that is except the
Chiangs who were on the outside looking in at the real decision-making.
Although China’s goals for influencing American foreign policy
during the war centered on combating British objectives, the Chiangs
were also working assiduously to have the U.S. cement their place in
the post-war world as a major power among the United Nations. As Madame
Chiang threatened in a letter to Roosevelt’s aide Lauchlin Currie:
I see with great distress that, unless China after the war
is accepted as an equal in international affairs and there
really will be the creation of a new world society in which
men of every race are considered and treated as equals, the
Chinese people will rise in such indignation that there may
be another war far more terrible than the war we are now
passing through. The Generalissimo and I have committed
ourselves to our people regarding that new world society.62
In this effort the Chiangs could have been successful.
Despite
Churchill’s misgivings, President Roosevelt was unshakable in his
belief that China needed to be a major player in post-war Asia, and, as
the world’s most populous nation, in the post-war world.
also viewed colonialism as “a dangerous anachronism.”63
Roosevelt
In this case,
their failure was not due to an inability to influence U.S. foreign
policy in their favor; it was due to the precipitous decline of the
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 208.
Jesperson, Madame Chiang Kaishek and the Face of Sino-American Relations: Personality and Gender
Dynamics in Biliateral Diplomacy, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang Kaishek and her China, 134.
61
62
63
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 245.
27
China’s reputation in the eyes of America in the later years of the war.
The combination of the Koumintang’s burgeoning reputation for
corruption, Chiang Kai-shek’s chronic reputation for military inaction
and waste, and Madame Chiang and the Soong family’s emerging reputation
for avarice created a self-inflicted wound that Roosevelt’s, and later
Truman’s, foreign policy pundits could neither cover up nor ignore.
By the end of the war, U.S. association with the Chiangs and the
Koumintang government had become something of an embarrassment.
By
1945, the U.S. had given up all pretense of protecting China’s rights,
sovereignty, or “great power” status.
At the Yalta conference in
February of that year, the pledges made at Teheran were formalized.
Roosevelt further agreed that the Russians would join the war on Japan
and that their former rights in Manchuria would be restored.
He also
agreed to cede a naval base at Port Arthur and grant joint control of
key railroads and access to Dalien port to Russia.
After the surrender
of Japan in August 1945, Hong Kong was returned to British sovereignty.
At this time Madame Chiang, who was in the U.S. again for medical
reasons, made another visit to the White House.
Unlike 1943, when she
was hosted as a foreign dignitary, President Truman allowed her only a
fifteen-minute courtesy call.
In December 1945, Truman sent one of the most respected men in
the United States, General George Marshall, to China to try to broker a
peace agreement between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists.
When
Marshall’s mission failed, due to deep distrust on both sides, the last
residue of U.S. support for Nationalist China and its place in the
post-war world evaporated.
By 1948, Truman had become firmly non-
committal regarding support for the imperiled Koumintang government.
28
Privately, he fumed, “They’re thieves, every…one of them.”64
Madame
Chiang again took her appeal directly to the American people, by radio
from Nanking, stating dramatically in an echo of Nathan Hale, “And if
unhappily, we should fail, our only regret will be that we have but one
life to give to China.”
65
Her appeals were no less well crafted than in
1943, but they now fell on deaf ears.
Madame Chiang and her husband tried to influence U.S. foreign
policy during World War II in two ways.
First they tried to persuade
the U.S. to use its power to help them counterbalance British colonial
designs on Asia in general and colonial attitudes toward China in
particular.
Second, they hoped to bring to fruition President
Roosevelt’s vision of China as a post-war great power that would become
a center of gravity in Asia and a respected voice in the United Nations.
In both of these efforts they failed.
Despite having a champion in
Roosevelt and a worldwide platform in Cairo at the height of their
influence, they were undermined in their first objective by the
realpolitik related to Allied military strategy that gave primacy to
exigencies in Europe.
There was a dichotomy between U.S. support of a
“Europe first” military policy and support of China’s position vis-àvis Britain in Asia.
This dichotomy became quickly apparent in the
swiftness and ease that Roosevelt broke the promises made in Cairo at
Teheran.
The Chiangs were undermined in their second objective by the
pernicious reputation of Koumintang corruption, Chaing Kai-shek’s
perceived military inaction, and Madame Chiang and the Soong family’s
cupidity.
In the final analysis, Madame Chiang effected no lasting
change on U.S. foreign policy during the war.
64
Donovan, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: Face of Modern China, 86-87.
65
Mme. Chiang Cites U.S. Stake in Clash, New York Times. (November 22, 1948).
29
Influence on Public Policy
Madame Chiang’s strategy for influencing U.S. public policy
during World War II was to present herself as a definitive icon of
China and the Chinese people.
In so doing, she wanted Americans to see
her as the face and voice of China: a face they would find familiar and
attractive, a voice that would be at once comforting and at the same
time challenging to their ingrained cultural prejudices.
The specific
target of her public policy assault would be the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Her actual impact would go beyond these laws however, affecting all
future public policy as it related to Chinese-Americans, by humanizing
Chinese citizens in the eyes of the public and showing racist attitudes
towards Chinese in an appropriately unflattering light.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882.
It was the result
of over thirty years of progressive racism that dated back to the mass
migration of Chinese during California’s gold rush.66
It banned Chinese
from immigrating to the U.S., becoming naturalized citizens, or owning
property.
The act was originally intended to be in place for ten years,
but was extended indefinitely, and in 1902 became permanent.
Madame
Chiang often took an indirect route against the exclusion laws by
railing against Chinese exploitation in general.
For example, in
Atlantic Monthly she wrote:
We are determined that there shall be no more exploitation
of China. I have no wish to harp on old grievances, but
realism demands that I should mention the ruthless and
shameless exploitation of our country by the West in the
past and the hard-dying illusion that the best way to win
our hearts is to kick us in the ribs. Such asinine
66
The Chinese Exclusion Act: A Black Legacy.
http://sun.menloschool.org/~mbrody/ushistory/angel/exclusion_act. (n.d.), ¶1.
30
stupidities must never be repeated, as much for your own
sake as for ours.67
Exploitation and exclusion were two sides of the same coin.
If the
listener agreed that one was “asinine, “shameless,” and “stupid,” it
was obvious that the other was too.
Both were the result of what she
called the West’s “superiority complex.”68
Importantly, Madame Chiang
did not always have to attack the Exclusion Act directly to influence
the continuing debate on overturning this controversial legislation.
Her public image, as fostered during her 1943 tour of the U.S.,
combined with her articulate, persuasive speeches about a variety
important matters created an urgency behind the debate that did not
exist prior to her arrival in the U.S.
T. Christopher Jesperson in his essay about Madame Chiang and
Sino-American relations highlighted four qualities that made Madame
Chiang an iconic and attractive Chinese vision for Americans.
First,
she was a Christian and consistently propounded her Christian values.
Second, she was a woman, a woman of tremendous personal magnetism and
physical beauty.
Third, she spoke beautiful English.
She enhanced
this with her accent, which had a hint of the Southern belle, and by
using erudite allusions and esoteric vocabulary, which projected her
high level of education.
Fourth was her relationship with her husband.
She was regarded as having significant influence over him and power
within his inner circle second only to his.69
Much as Frederick
Douglass, in the 1860s, through his powerful intellect and speeches,
67
Jesperson, Madame Chiang Kaishek and the Face of Sino-American Relations: Personality and Gender
Dynamics in Biliateral Diplomacy, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang Kaishek and her China, 135.
68
Mayling Soong Chiang, First Lady of the East Speaks to the West, New York Times. (April 19, 1942).
Jesperson, Madame Chiang Kaishek and the Face of Sino-American Relations: Personality and Gender
Dynamics in Biliateral Diplomacy, in Samuel C. Chu (ed.), Madame Chiang Kaishek and her China, 130131.
69
31
presented a vision that helped bring the assumption of African racial
inferiority into stark contrast with reality, so too did Madame Chiang
by her words, her actions, and her very existence challenge deep-seated
prejudices about Chinese for average Americans.
The most powerful force in molding Madame Chiang’s image for the
American public was the press.
Magazines and newspapers, particularly
during her 1943 tour of the U.S., constructed an array of complimentary,
and complementary, images of Madame Chiang.
These images would combine
to cast her, in 1943 at least, as the war’s predominant heroine.
Of
the six major newspapers in the six cities she visited on her U.S. tour,
over 175 articles covering her trip appeared; of these, 45 appeared on
the front page.70
Coverage was also extensive in Luce’s magazines and
many others; even fashion magazines were enamored of the fashion trends
that Madame Chiang was helping to create.
From this coverage, seven
key images, or archetypes, of Madame Chiang emerged: “Oriental Lady,”
“Foreign Government Leader,” “Partner to Husband,” “ American Made,”
“Strong, Independent Woman,” “International Celebrity,” and “Chinese
Aristocrat.”71
It is important to note that these were not just the
artificial constructions of an overzealous press.
They were versions,
albeit exaggerated versions, of the reality that constituted this
complex, accomplished, and intelligent Chinese woman.
She gave
magazine and newspaper men so many different angles from which to write
that she became irresistible to them, and to America.
Over time, the
downside of this adulation was inevitable overexposure and popular
discomfiture when she could not live up to an inflated image that had
Haygood, Uncovering Henry Luce’s agenda for China: A Comparative analysis of Time, Incorporated
and other media coverage of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s trips to America (1943-1948), 183.
71
Haygood, Uncovering Henry Luce’s agenda for China: A Comparative analysis of Time, Incorporated
and other media coverage of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s trips to America (1943-1948), 184.
70
32
been idealized in seven dimensions.
The press commonly made
comparisons between Madame Chiang and Joan of Arc.
The Los Angeles
Times’ pronouncement of her as the “New Goddess of Man’s Liberty,” was
bound, sooner or later, to disappoint.72
Before disbelief had set in, however, the ability of Madame
Chiang to captivate the American public had a profound effect on
America’s views about the Chinese race.
The impact of Madame Chiang’s
1943 U.S. tour led directly to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act
that same year.
Madame Chiang’s centrality to the issue was emphasized
when the bill repealing the act was passed by the Senate during the
Cairo conference, so it could be rushed by a waiting plane to Roosevelt
who signed it in Cairo with Madame Chiang looking on.73
Madame Chiang attempted to influence U.S. public policy by using
herself as an icon to draw attention to the unfair public treatment of
Chinese in America, and specifically to gain repeal of the hated
Chinese Exclusion Act.
Her speeches and her crafted public image made
her the dynamic, living proof that the exclusion laws were unfair,
racist, and part of a longstanding exploitation of China, and Chinese,
by the West.
She succeeded not only in getting the Chinese Exclusion
Act repealed sooner than it might otherwise have been, but in taking
public credit for it on a worldwide stage by being present at the
signing if its repeal by the President.
It would be her most
successful and only lasting assault on U.S. policy during World War II.
72
William Fillmore Malloy, A Toast, Los Angeles Times. (March 31, 1943).
73
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, 244.
33
Conclusion
From the start of the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937 until the
end of World War II, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was in the vanguard of
Chinese Nationalists trying to influence U.S. policy in China’s favor.
She actively tried to shape U.S. military policy, U.S. foreign policy,
and U.S. public policy.
Her efforts in the area of military policy centered at first on
her relationships with America’s top soldiers in China, Stilwell and
Chennault, then with visiting dignitaries, such as Wendell Willkie and
Henry Luce.
Later, in 1943, she went to the American halls of power in
person, and into the homes of millions of average Americans via the
media, to press the case for greater military support for China.
Her
goal was not just to gain more military support, but also to increase
her husband’s ability to direct that support unilaterally, and to
change American military priorities that subordinated the war against
Japan to the defeat of Nazi-Germany.
Despite her undoubted
attractiveness and persuasiveness, she was not able to exercise a
strong influence over U.S. military policy in anything but a tactical
sense.
It was said that Madame Chiang was “worth ten divisions to the
Generalissimo.”74
Her actual military impact vis-à-vis the U.S. was far
less.
Madame Chiang’s efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy during
the war were twofold.
goals in Asia.
First, she wanted to combat British imperial
Second, she wanted to cement Roosevelt’s vision of
China as a post-war great power in Asia and in the United Nations.
74
She
A.T. Steele, The American People and China. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966), 23.
34
failed in combating British aims primarily because the European theatre
was the center-point of U.S. war strategy and policy. Britain was,
therefore, in a much better position than China to dictate quid pro
quos to the Roosevelt and his administration.
She also failed in her
attempts to secure for Nationalist China its envisioned place in the
post-war world as a great power because the crumbling reputations of
her husband, his government, and the Soong family during the war
undermined China’s credibility.
This was exacerbated by Communist
military victories after the war, which the U.S. would not help
counterbalance because it no longer saw the Nationalists in a positive
light.
Madame Chiang’s attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy
during the war were, on the whole, ineffective.
The one area where Madame Chiang made a lasting impact was on U.S.
public policy.
She was the catalyst that transformed American opinions
about Chinese and Chinese-Americans.
She was idealized in a variety of
ways: she was a celebrity, a fashion model, a world leader, a model
Christian, a sex symbol, and an intellectual, all at once.
Although
she was not able to sustain these images in the eyes of the American
people, her ability to create them in the first place challenged
American cultural prejudices.
Her 1943 tour of the U.S. played a
decisive role in overturning the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Madame Chiang’s influence on U.S. policy during World War II was
limited, but the strength of her assault was, at the height of her fame
and power, quite formidable.
Her thrusts were camouflaged by appeals
to deep-seated American emotions: “to be admired, emulated, and—most of
all—needed by weak, oppressed and ostensibly less civilized peoples.”75
In these appeals, she herself became a powerful metaphor for China:
75
Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady. 202.
35
proud, intelligent, but sickly and frail, in need of U.S. support to
get well again.
She was swiftly idolized by the American people and
then, just as swiftly, vilified.
What should be recognized, however,
is that the United States did not always have consistent or welldesigned strategies or policies, and that it broke promises to China
whenever it proved politically or militarily expedient to do so.
In
looking at U.S.-China relations during World War II, one should
remember: “No one has a monopoly on virtue; and no one on
incompetence.”76 American policy towards China was as self-interested
and ambiguous as Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s defense of her country’s
interest.
76
Hans J. van der Ven, War and Nationalism in China. (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 21.
36
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Malloy, William Fillmore. William Fillmore Malloy, A Toast, Los
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Mme. Chiang Cites U.S. Stake in Clash, New York Times.
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China Matters, The Willkie/Soong May-Ling Affair.
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Fenby, Jonathon. Revelation.
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DISSERTATIONS
Haygood, Daniel Marshall.
China: A Comparative
other media coverage
America (1943-1948).
Hill, 2005.
Uncovering Henry Luce’s agenda for
analysis of Time, Incorporated and
of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s trips to
University of North Carolina at Chapel