Hoover Institution Opens a Window on Chinese History April 26.

News Editors

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2004

The family of one of the most influential figures in modern Chinese history has decided to fully open, for the first time, its historical papers for research in the Hoover Institution Archives.

T.V. Soong, foreign minister of China during World War II, worked closely with United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt to defeat Japan, negotiated with Moscow to reestablish Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria, and represented China at the founding of the United Nations. His papers consist of three parts.

The first part, 39 boxes, has been available for research in the Hoover Archives since its acquisition as a gift from the family in the 1970s. That landmark collection has been used extensively. According to Stanford professor of Chinese politics John Lewis, "For the research on my co-authored book Uncertain Partners, I was privileged to draw on the files of the Soong-Stalin meetings from June to August 1945 for our best understanding of Stalin's post-war plans for Asia."

The second part, 19 boxes, was restricted during the lifetime of Soong's sister, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, out of respect for her privacy. Thus when Madame died on October 23, 2003 at age 105, the heirs decided, in the interest of fostering a more accurate understanding of their homeland, to open the closed 19 boxes.

There is a general lack of documentation on Chinese history. Jonathan Spence, who teaches modern Chinese history at Yale, wrote recently in the New York Times Book Review (February 29, 2004) that this gap in the archival record has left much history "in the hands of Chinese composers of the kind of unofficial histories that the Chinese call yeshi (literally wild or undocumented histories)."

Even more important, the family has since augmented the existing official files at Hoover with more than 2,000 documents from their private family archives. Michael Feng, grandson of T.V. Soong, hand-carried these newly available materials from New York to the Hoover Institution at Stanford on March 12, 2004.

In these papers T.V. Soong, as an eyewitness to history, describes such turning points as the abduction of Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 (called the Sian incident), the dismissal of General Joseph Stilwell, and the framing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945. The newly available papers include rare personal correspondence among the Soong family, including the famed sisters, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Madame Sun Yat-sen, and Madame H.H. K'ung. In an effort to correct pervasive yeshi-style rumors about the family's personal finances, the decision was made to open private financial papers as well. While private individuals rarely include personal financial data in archival donations, T.V. Soong's heirs chose transparency in order to counter undocumented speculation.

"All future historians of China will mine these marvelous additions to the archives and in their citations will recall the great contributions of T.V. Soong to the modern history of China," commented Professor Lewis. Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Ramon Myers explained that these papers cover the "debates with Winston Churchill, John Davis and many others" and that the files "show Soong to be a loyal and brilliant official representing his country while advancing its national interests and strategic thinking."

Once they have been cataloged, these previously unknown documents will be made available, on April 26, 2004, for research in the reading room of the Hoover Institution Archives, which is open to the public free of charge. Information can be found on the web site www.hoover.org/hila or by contacting the head of reference, Carol Leadenham, [e-mail].

T.V. Soong was born December 4, 1894, and died on April 25, 1971. Born into a wealthy Christian family in Shanghai, the Soong family was Americanized, entrepreneurial, and devoutly Christian. Soong, the most Westernized of the leading officials of the Republic of China, served as banker, finance minister, foreign minister, and premier during his illustrious career.

Soong graduated from Shanghai's St. John's University and from Harvard University in 1915, with a B.A. degree in economics. His career began in 1924, as general manager of the Central Bank at Canton, and ended in January 1949, as an adviser on reinforcing Taiwan as an anticommunist stronghold.

T.V. Soong modernized China's finances by simplifying the tax system and was instrumental in establishing that nation's first bond and stock market in Shanghai. His active role in the creation of the National Economic Council in 1931 led to his establishing the China Development Finance Corporation in 1934, which became the main source of credit for promoting China's industrialization and attracting foreign capital to China.

Throughout the early 1940s, Soong skillfully negotiated substantial loans from the United States to sustain China in its war effort. In December 1941, Chiang Kai-shek appointed him foreign minister, and Soong stayed on in the United States to forge China's alliance with the Allies. In December 1944, he became premier of Nationalist China, and the following April, he led the Chinese delegation as one of four chairmen at the United Nations Security Conference in San Francisco.

His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, the Republic of China's famed leader, was marked by frequent disagreements, especially regarding Chiang's escalating military expenditures and his policy of tactical restraint toward Japan in the 1930s. When Soong worked with General George Marshall in 1946 to reconcile disagreements between the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Communist Party's leaders, he conducted talks with Zhou Enlai, but was reproached by President Chiang.

Twice Soong visited Moscow to negotiate with the Soviets and obtained recognition of China's sovereignty in Manchuria. Failing to prevent the secession of Outer Mongolia, he resigned as foreign minister in July 1945. At war's end, his insistence upon recovering resources from the wartime puppet government personnel and collaborators alienated him from certain influential business factions. In the next few years, Soong vainly fought to contain hyperinflation and rehabilitate the war-ravaged Chinese economy. In early 1947 he resigned as premier and subsequently assumed his last official post as governor of Canton.

In his long official career, in which he occupied almost every important post in Nationalist China, Soong displayed remarkable skills, fusing government and private enterprise to promote China's modernization. In 1949 Soong came to New York, where he continued to live a private and modest lifestyle. Throughout his remaining years, he kept the ROC government apprised of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan.

The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs, with internationally renowned archives.