Sung Ching-Ling

(also Soong Ch’ing-ling). Born 1890 in Shanghai. Chinese state and public figure. Widow of Sun Yat-sen.

Sung Ch’ing-ling was educated in the USA. After Chiang Kaishek’s counterrevolutionary coup of 1927, she attacked the reactionary policies of the Kuomintang. Between 1927 and 1929 she traveled in the USSR, Western Europe, and the USA. In 1932 she helped organize the Chinese Human Rights Defense League. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) she founded the China Defense League. From 1949 to 1954 she was deputy chairman of the Central People’s Government Council of the Chinese People’s Republic (CPR).

From 1954 to 1959 and again beginning in 1975, Sung Ch’ing-ling was deputy chairman of the Committee of the National People’s Congress. From 1959 to 1975 she was deputy chairman of the CPR. In 1953 she became honorary chairman of the All-China Democratic Women’s Federation, and in 1954 she became chairman of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association. In 1950 she was elected a member of the Bureau of the World Peace Council.

Sung Ch’ing-ling was awarded the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Nations in 1951.