On July 17, Chiang received a personal message from Nixon:
I deeply regret that I was not able to inform you at an earlier date of the substance of my announcement of July 15.… I recognize that these actions are disturbing to the Republic of China. In seeking to reduce tensions in the world, however, I wish to assure you that the United States will maintain its ties of friendship with your country and will continue to honor its defense treaty commitment to the Republic of China. I am proud of my long personal association with you, and I know the American people will continue to cherish their friendship with the people of the Republic of China.
Years later, Kissinger echoed the sentiments of the president. “I felt sorry for what we had to do to them,” he told the author, “but we had to do it.” The month after Kissinger’s trip, the U.S. proposal of dual representation for China in the United Nations elicited a sour response from Chiang Kai-shek, who claimed that he would rather be “a broken jade on the ground than a whole tile on the roof.” As former supporters of Nationalist China “rushed to embrace Peking,” Taiwan agreed to give up its seat on the Security Council in order to remain in the world body; this decision, Taylor said, came from Ching-kuo, since his father’s health was growing steadily worse. On October 25, 1971, the U.N. General Assembly voted to seat the PRC and to “expel the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek”—a development that May-ling blamed on Ching-kuo, apparently refusing to communicate with him for some time thereafter. Although the United States made a show of lobbying for Taiwan, it was noted that on the day of the General Assembly’s vote, Kissinger was back in Peking making plans for Nixon’s historic trip. Two weeks earlier, Nixon, who said that his “personal friendship” with the Chiangs made “the rapprochement with Peking… a profoundly wrenching personal experience for me,” had sent California Governor Ronald Reagan to Taipei, ostensibly for the annual celebration of the Double Tenth, but in fact to inform the generalissimo of the president’s plans to go to China himself.
Before Nixon traveled to China in February 1972, he sent another conciliatory message to Chiang Kai-shek, and Ching-kuo assured the U.S. ambassador in Taipei that his government would make no “unusual movements or actions” that might lead to an unfortunate incident. Although there was television coverage of Nixon’s arrival in China, there was no broadcast of the first meeting between the U.S. president and Mao Tse-tung, hence no public airing of one of Mao and Chou’s first exchanges with Nixon and Kissinger:
Chairman Mao:
Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn’t approve of this.…He calls us Communist bandits.…
President Nixon:
Chiang Kai-shek calls the Chairman a bandit. What does the Chairman call Chiang Kai-shek?
Prime Minister Chou:
Generally speaking we call them Chiang Kai-shek’s clique. In the newspapers sometimes we call him a bandit, we are also called bandits in turn. Anyway, we abuse each other.
Chairman Mao:
Actually, the history of our friendship with him is much longer than the history of your friendship with him.
President Nixon:
Yes, I know.
Taiwan was clearly on the minds of the participants, and both Nixon and Kissinger went to “some length” to reassure the Chinese that the United States would not support any Nationalist movement toward independence. “I told the Prime Minister,” Kissinger said, “that no American personnel… will give any encouragement or support in any way to the Taiwan Independence Movement.… What we cannot do is use our forces to suppress the movement on Taiwan if it develops without our support.” President Nixon said much the same thing in a communiqué, issued albeit in private, that affirmed “the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan.” Communist China emerged from the talks, according to Topping, no longer menaced by both the United States and Russia, while the latter “had been nudged into a triangular relationship with China and the United States in which it would have to weigh new risk factors before making an overt move against either of the two other powers,” an “inhibition” that was good for the United States as well.
After Nixon flew home from Shanghai, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs and one of Kissinger’s assistants flew to various Asian capitals in an attempt to relieve concerns other nations might have over the presidential visit. Among these was, of course, Taipei, where the envoys held a “long and cordial meeting” with Ching-kuo. He assured them that he was not “too disturbed” as long as the Mutual Security Treaty of 1954* remained in force and U.S. military aid continued. As one of the Americans put it, “Our relationship with them will continue because they have nowhere else to go.” At eighty-four, Chiang Kai-shek was less forgiving. His inaugural address of May 1972 was a grim one, in which he complained of being confined to his island. “One step backward,” he said, “would leave us no place for burial.” It was for this reason, Chiang claimed, that he had “summoned the courage and determination to accept this office, despite my advanced age and the gravity of the duties and responsibilities.”
NOT LONG AFTER this, on May 26, 1972, Ching-kuo became premier. In an effort to forestall America’s inevitable diplomatic switch from Taipei to Peking, Ching-kuo invited a number of VIPs and reporters to visit Taiwan, and he increased purchases of U.S. military equipment. Between 1971 and 1978, exports and imports between the United States and Taiwan zoomed— from $1.3 billion to $7.4 billion.† Stressing administrative reform on the island, he named native Taiwanese as governor of the island, vice premier, interior minister, and minister of communications. At his first cabinet meeting, he set down Ten Rules of Reform, in which officials were no longer allowed to patronize “girlie restaurants” or give extravagant weddings and funerals. He cracked down on bribes and other abuses of office, and more than fifty government officials were arrested for smuggling.
While Ching-kuo was steering the Taiwanese government toward the left, Madame Chiang, whose husband was clearly dying, was forced to limit her political activities to local organizations like her Women’s League. The absence of political work and power at such a pivotal time in the affairs of Taiwan and the Kuomintang must have been very hard on her.
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It was clear that—in death as in life—the Generalissimo’s heart was not in Taiwan.
—JAY TAYLOR
ON AUGUST 15, 1967, May-ling’s brother-in-law H. H. Kung died in New York at the age of eighty-six, and a memorial was held in Taipei at which Chiang Kai-shek gave the eulogy. Dedicated to resurrecting Kung’s tarnished reputation at the expense of T. V. Soong, the G-mo attributed two of T.V.’s major accomplishments—“establishment of a uniform national currency” and “unification of the financial systems of the provinces”—to Kung. Claiming that Kung had “made a larger contribution to the fight against Japan than anyone else,” Chiang blamed Kung’s resignation on the Communists, who had “left no stone unturned in spreading rumors to dupe the people.… It was self-evident that Dr. Kung was a man of integrity,” the G-mo continued, “not of corruption; and that he was competent, not incompetent. Once he was out of office, the nation’s finances and economy fell apart and the Communist plot to overthrow the government succeeded in less than three years.” According to The New York Times, however, the truth was the exact opposite: “When Mr. Kung left China in 1947 for retirement in the United States he left behind an economic disaster the Communists soon turned to account.”
Less than two years later, at the end of February 1969, May-ling’s youngest brother, T.A., chairman of the Bank of Canton, died of a brain hemorrhage in Hong Kong at the age of sixty-one. His body was returned to San Francisco, where a service for three hundred was held in Grace Cathedral. Among the mourners, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, was Madame Chiang, “in poor health and… emotionally upset… [who] required assistance” to enter the cathedral. All of the Soong sisters and brothers were in attendance except Ching-ling, who, the Ch
ronicle assumed, “chose to remain in mainland China.” The choice, however, had not been hers. T.A. had been Ching-ling’s favorite brother, but she had to engage the help of Chou En-lai and his wife to even get permission to send a wire of condolence.
Six months later, Chiang and May-ling were riding in their limousine up to their mountain home when a jeep swerved over the dividing line of the road. The escort car preceding them stopped suddenly, and the limo plowed into it. Almost a year later, Madame’s secretary informed Emma Mills that the Madame was “still unable to write or paint and cannot stand for any length of time on her left leg” since “the jolt to her head was so severe that it caused injury to the spinal cord with resultant pain in her right arm and hand and her left leg.” Unlike her husband, May-ling spent some days in the hospital, complaining of whiplash and other spinal injuries, which did not seem to improve for over a month—or until President Nixon offered to send an American osteopathic specialist to Taiwan to consult with her doctors.
When she returned home, Madame Chiang hired a young nurse who had attended her several years earlier, brought in this time for night duty. It was a tough assignment, according to the nurse, due to “the constant massaging.” And as soon as she had become accustomed to the work, Madame’s niece “Jeanette Kung brought Madame Chiang and me a new ‘weapon’—a new-style massage machine, shaped like a hand grenade. Jeanette Kung attached it to my hand and turned on the power. The machine was supposed to do the work, but it was very heavy and the strong vibrations bothered me. However, Madame Chiang liked it very much. From then on, it was necessary for me to use the machine, and my work became much harder.”
Being a nurse, a maid, or even a woman in the Chiang home had never been particularly easy. The G-mo refused to deal with women telephone operators, going so far as to hang up the phone if a female voice answered. During the 1960s, when the miniskirt was in vogue, a young nurse arrived at the Chiang residence to take up her duties with Madame Chiang. Happening to go into his wife’s room, Chiang frowned when he saw the young woman. The next day he pulled his wife aside: “Maybe you can find an opportunity to tell the new nurse not to wear those mini-skirts. They are too short. Her legs are exposed. Where are her manners?” For an elderly man with two ex-wives and many mistresses, Chiang’s prudishness seems odd. He even objected to women wearing slacks, and it was not until after his death that May-ling listened to her doctors and wore them to keep warm.
In October of 1970, a year after the accident, May-ling wrote Emma to say she was “much better” but “still not fully recovered,” and eighteen months after the collision, she was still referring to it: “I am not completely over the effects of the auto accident.… Better, yes, and doing some work, painting, and seeing guests, but not yet fully back on my usual routine. Recently I had a minor operation on my good foot as I had overstrained it in trying to compensate for the leg and foot which are not yet fully recovered.”
Meanwhile Chiang, who had been thrown from the backseat of the limo into the front, had escaped serious injury, but his dental bridge had cut into his gums, and for some time thereafter he had difficulty speaking. He was also beginning to show more serious signs of decline—an enlarged prostate, hardening of the arteries, back trouble—and had been unable to stand for more than a few minutes during his most recent inauguration.
Physically debilitated, the G-mo remained his intractable self. Unwilling to give up “the reins of power,” he had become “progressively isolated,” according to H. K. Yang, Taiwan’s vice foreign minister. He was, Yang said, “severely handcapped in making critical decisions by not having the frank, uninhibited thinking of his advisers,” and even Chiang Ching-kuo would “not take a position until he knows what the President’s inclination is.” Yang also contended that Chiang was “adversely influenced by the alleged selfish, ultraconservatism of Madame Chiang,” who was “interested in preserving a preeminent status for herself and not greatly concerned with the need for making difficult adaptations to the exigencies of the current critical situation.”
In late April of 1971, May-ling lost her older brother T.V., who died at the age of seventy-seven at a dinner party in San Francisco. His body was returned to New York, where he had been living and where services were held at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. “Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek was to have been in New York today for the funeral of her brother, Dr. T. V. Soong,” The New York Times reported. “She canceled her trip yesterday, after she was informed that the Communist Chinese might send her sister here too.” According to Li, May-ling was “already airborne” when she had the plane turn around and go back to Taiwan; the government, according to Ching-kuo, worried that the Communists had plotted a “United Front trap,” i.e., a metaphorical reconciliation between the two Chinas via the sisters.
Ching-ling, who was currently living in Peking, had been given a palace with many servants on the banks of the Imperial Lakes. Ignoring her early Methodist training, she apparently gave dancing parties and “would glide gracefully” by with Chou En-lai. “Mao did try,” said one of Ching-ling’s friends. “But from what I hear, wasn’t very agile.” Journalist Harrison Salisbury attended a dinner in her home in the summer of 1972, and he, like everyone else, was captivated by his hostess. “To dine with Mrs Sun,” he said, “is to be in a presence. There is no other way to describe this vigorous woman who still flashes a smile that has something of a schoolgirl’s grace in it and whose wit has not been dulled by the years.” Nor had immersion in the proletarian culture of the Chinese Communists changed the standard of living that Ching-ling shared with her sisters. She began the evening by apologizing for the service—“my waiters have all gone off to the rural training schools for political reorientation and the new ones just aren’t well trained”—and then begging her guests’ indulgence for the cuisine: “The old cooks are dying, and the youngsters don’t want to learn—they think it’s menial.”
In response to condolences on the death of T.V., May-ling wrote Emma that “the family deeply feels the loss, both of him and of my younger brother T.A., who died just two years previously—both so suddenly and unexpectedly—neither giving any sign or indication of sickness or discomfort before passing. Their sudden and unexpected deaths, coming so closely together, have of course made our loss the much harder to bear.” Since this was the very least she could have said about her older brother, we have to assume that May-ling and T.V. were still on the outs at the time of his death and that she refused to admit, perhaps even to herself, what her brother had done for China.
William S. Youngman, onetime president of China Defense Supplies, later head of C. V. Starr,* was named trustee of T.V.’s estate and made up for his sister’s lack of generosity in the eulogy he delivered at the funeral. Calling T.V. “one of the truly great leaders of the free world—and humanity,” Youngman described Soong’s “incredible performance” in convincing leaders of the most powerful nations… that China deserved its place among them. “No other man in the world could have argued that case so successfully,” he claimed. History, Youngman added, would confirm the fact that Soong “above all was the one man who… was able to bring China into economic and political dialogue with the modern world. A true citizen of two worlds—he was an indispensable link between them.”
According to one Wall Street Journal report, T.V. “had amassed over $70 million”† by 1943, twenty-eight years before his death. But the report also cited his city of residence as San Francisco, so it is hard to credit.* Since his estate was recorded for the courts at something less than $10 million† before taxes, Li believes it was “virtually certain that he had kept substantial assets off shore, where they would be impossible to trace.”
Ai-ling, who was in Taiwan at the time of T.V.’s death, remained for the summer with her sister and had an operation on her eye. “She was well on the road to recovery when suddenly she developed iritis [inflammation of the iris] in both eyes and had to remain several weeks in a dimly lit room,” May-ling wrote Emma. “I co
uld certainly sympathize with her, for I had had the same condition at the Cairo Conference.” May-ling also told her friend that she needed a rest: “I have had one cold after another all summer and nerve pain in my leg is still there.”
May-ling’s complaints about her own health coincided with an embarrassing mishap with her husband. Chiang suffered from constipation, and to relieve this condition, a glycerin ball was often inserted in his anus. On this particular occasion, the G-mo’s attendant, an unfortunate man named Chian, inserted two balls into what was later described as a muscle next to the anus—a mistake that caused excessive bleeding, necessitated surgery, and left Chiang confined to a painful month of recuperation during which he could neither sit nor stand. Chiang ordered Chian into prison, but Ching-kuo wanted to execute him in accordance with military law. The controversy was settled when a member of the household suggested that he be confined in the guardhouse of the presidential home so that he could not speak about the incident to anyone. Although Madame told Chian more than once, “You have destroyed the President’s health. You are the devil,” she agreed five years later, after Chiang’s death and much “begging and pleading from all sides,” to set Chian free.
The Last Empress Page 83