Soong Ching-ling was a great woman in Chinese history. Her stories continue to be discussed by people.

She was the second wife of Sun Yat-sen, leader of the 1911 revolution that established the Republic of China, and was often referred to as Mme. Sun Yat-sen. She was a member of the Soong family, and together with her brothers and sisters played a prominent role in China's politics prior to 1949. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, she held several prominent positions in the new government, and traveled abroad during the early 1950s, representing China at a number of international activities.

Soong Ching-ling was born to businessman and missionary Charlie Soong in what is now Chuansha, a district of Pudong, Shanghai, the second of six children. She attended McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, and graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, United States. Like her sisters, she spoke fluent English due to being educated in English for most of her life. Her Christian name was Rosamonde (in her early years, her passport name was spelled as Chung-ling Soong, and in her Wesleyan College diploma, her name was Rosamonde Chung-ling Soong).

Soong married Sun Yat-sen, leader of China's 1911 revolution and founder of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party), on October 25, 1915, even though her parents greatly opposed the match. (Dr. Sun was 26 years her senior.) After Sun's death in 1925, she was elected to the KMT Central Executive Committee. However, she left China for Moscow after the expulsion of the Communists from the KMT in 1927, accusing the KMT of betraying her husband's legacy. Her younger sister, May-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek shortly afterward, making Chiang Soong's brother-in-law.

Soong returned to China in June 1929 when Sun Yat-sen was moved from his temporary burial site in Beijing to a new memorial in Nanjing, but left again three months later, and did not return until July 1931, when her mother died. During the Chinese Civil War, Soong permanently broke with her family and supported the Communists. With the collapse of the Nationalist government and the Communist victory in the civil war, she left Shanghai in September 1949 to attend the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), convened in Beijing by the Chinese Communist Party to establish a new Central People's Government. On October 1, she was a guest at the ceremony in Tiananmen Square marking the birth of the new People's Republic of China.