Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Dies in NYC at 105

[bluestateguy]

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the widow of the Nationalist Chinese president who used her charm and fluent English to lobby Washington and become a driving force in Taiwan's Nationalist government, died Thursday in New York. She was 105.

The cause of death was not immediately available, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Richard Shih said Friday.

more


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031024/ap_on_re_as/obit_madame_chiang&cid=516&ncid=716

[Pale_Rider]

1. The last of the three Soong sisters ...

Madame 'Mei-ling Soong' Chiang Kai-shek gained power by marrying the KMT Nationalist leader Chiang. Her sister, Ai-ling Soong, married a banker H.H. Kung who was the wealthiest man in China. The third sister, Ching-ling Soong, married Dr. Sun Yat-sen who inspired the Chinese to have a free and independent China.

All three Soong sisters did quite well for themselves...

[mobuto]

2. Yes

but this Soong did well but doing ill.

The China Lobby - of which Madama Chiang was the keystone - is largely responsible for setting the stage for much of the suffering that has plagued North and Southeast Asia over the last half-century.

[Maple]

3. Maybe now

we can finally resolve the problem of Taiwan.

[JackSwift]

4. Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Leni Rifenstal, Strom Thurmond, Mme Chaing, Edward Teller. A glorious year for the departure of The Ancient Old Ones that the Devil had been trying to keep from taking over.

[jenm]

9. don't worry

There are plenty of people out there who'll step up to the plate to replace them.

[dArKeR]

5. I wonder who's get'in the money she and her husband stole from

the Taiwanese people?

Who's get'in the artifacts she and her husband stole from China?

I'm sure her and her husband are responsible for more deaths than Saddam.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I don't know about the money...

but the artifacts are in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

I'm not sure how many deaths the Chiangs were responsible for, but the native Taiwanese were not happy when the mainlanders came over in 1949. There were lots of protests and riots, and the reprisals were bloody.

I went to Taiwan in 1985 while it was still a dictatorship. Chiang Kai-shek had been dead for about ten years, but the city still appeared to be under military oocupation, with uniformed soldiers carrying automatic weapons patrolling the major intersections. There were propaganda billboards all over Taipei, saying things like "We will reconquer the Mainland" and "Anti-Communism is our fundamental principle."

Things were never as bad in Taiwan as they were in China during the Cultural Revolution, but according to friends of mine who studied Chinese in Taiwan and the Taiwanese students I knew in Japan in the 1970s, there was severe censorship, domestic spying, and strict enforcement of the government line in schools.

For example, even the Chinese language school for foreigners that my grad school friends attended insisted that Beijing be referred to as Beiping, and that Nanjing was the still the capital of China. Media were censored, to the point that American movies were redubbed with Chinese-accented voices (and "correct" Chinese subtitles, of course) to change dialogue that might be politically offensive or offensive to Confucian morality.

The spying even extended to Taiwanese in foreign countries. There were a lot of Taiwanese students at my university in Japan, and when China went an archaeological exhibition to Tokyo, they debated going to see it, because they were afraid that the Taiwanese secret police would be photographing the ticket lines. One of them decided to go anyway and brought back the exhibition catalogue. Then the problem was how to smuggle the catalogue into Taiwan.

They checked everyone's luggage at customs, and anything that was made in China or mentioned China or was written in simplified characters would be confiscated.

Overall, the Chinese government has a worse human rights record, but until 1987, Taiwan was hardly a bastion of democracy.

[dArKeR]

13. The artifacts that weren't valuable went into the NPM the one's which were

went into the KMT pigs private collection.

[spinbaby]

7. The cause of death wasn't available?

One would think that being 105 would be fairly obvious as the cause of death.

[gratuitous]

8. Fairly obvious indeed -- too many speedballs

Come along, Madame Chiang. Satan's waitin'.

[smirkymonkey]

10. Exactly what I was thinking!

n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Totally unrelated curiosity

How many people born in the 19th century are alive today?

[5thGenDemocrat]

12. Only the good die young

My dad, a counterintelligence specialist during the Korean War, hated the Chiangs. Thought they were as corrupt as they came and were responsible for untold misery in that part of the world (not to mention responsible for the rise of Mao and, thus, dad's resultant orders to the Far East).
He was also none too fond of Harry Truman -- but that was due to HST signing a one-year involuntary extension of dad's service time 12 days before he was due to be discharged (kinda similar to what's going on with the National Guardsmen and Reservists in Iraq right now, I guess).
John
Dad hated fried chicken and Mort Neff, too -- but you'd have to be a Michiganian of a certain age to know who Mort Neff was.

[Zynx]

14. Good.

It's about time she died. She and her husband were worthless human beings.

[dArKeR]

15. Good vs. Evil Wrap Sheet

The RKF of Asia, President Chen Shui Bian (Abian)
http://www.president.gov.tw/
http://www.president.gov.tw/1_president/e_subject-05a9.html
http://www.scanews.com/collester/article3/article3.html



Liu Yan Chun grew up in Taiwan firmly believing that her family would someday go back to mainland China. It took most of her life to realize that there would be no triumphant return, as envisioned by the Nationalists when they retreated (Edit: this word should be INVADED Formosa which they renamed to Taiwan.) to Taiwan after defeat by the Chinese Communists in 1949. It took her longer still to realize that she had no desire to return.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/315530.asp



First lady's European tour seen as diplomatic success
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/07/24/1059010376.htm


Assassination Attempt
Chen's wife, you know, was at a time an even more strident crusader than he was for the rights of the Taiwanese and the DPP. In 1985 she was rammed over three times by a truck and was crippled, and the driver was never found despite the fact that there were witnesses. Most Taiwanese believe _ that it was a botched KMT assassination attempt. And Chen has to go home every night and see her sitting in a wheelchair because of it. It's not an easy thing to shake.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/marketqa/2000/03/20/



Accident or assassination attempt?

One account claims the driver, described in press reports at the time as a "simple peasant with a steady job and a fixed residence, Chang Jung-tsai" was driving an "illegally assembled truck" down the narrow street where Mrs. Chen was standing.

Witnesses said Chang purposefully hit Mrs. Chen. They insisted that the driver reportedly exclaimed "Oh, she's not dead yet" before backing up and running over her again to ensure maximum injury if not death.
http://www.chinaonline.com/refer/biographies/secure/chenshuibian.asp



From poverty to power: Chen Shui-bian's rise to the presidency
http://www.chinaonline.com/refer/biographies/secure/chenshuibian.asp


(Ex President) Lee says pro-unification forces to blame for SARS outbreak
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/05/19/1053309473.htm


DPP decries Soong's proposal
(Soong and Lien are mainland pigs.)
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/06/15/2003055308


KMT (Pig) rebel blasts party's voting order
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/06/02/2003053622


Recent poll shows satisfication with government, Chen
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/05/17/1053136494.htm



Former hospital chief under fire (SARS spreader)
Wu was the superintendent of Taipei Municipal Jen Ai when President Chen Shui-bian was Taipei mayor, but he was fired over allegations of corruption in an equipment purchase scandal.

When Ma Ying-jeou (KMT Pig) was elected mayor, he invited Wu back and made him the superintendent of Hoping.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/05/13/205762



The ‘New Taiwan Person’
Centuries ago, the island had an aboriginal culture of Malay and Polynesian descent. In the 17th century, the Dutch and Portuguese had colonies here, and the imported Chinese laborers — all men — intermarried with locals, forming the basis of the majority of today’s population. According this version of history, it was only in 1887 that China declared Taiwan a part of its territory in an effort to stem Japanese expansionism, say independence activists. But when that failed, China ceded Taiwan to Japan in perpetuity.
The Japanese held Taiwan for 50 years, until their defeat in World War II. In the years immediately after, Allied Forces backed Chiang Kai-shek’s temporary occupation of Taiwan. But according to pro-independence legal experts, the Nationalists never had a legal basis to stay.
“In 1949, Taiwan did not “split off from China”, but was occupied by the losing side in the Chinese Civil War,” according to a 1999 white paper endorsed by 18 overseas Taiwanese associations.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/316717.asp?cp1=1


Premier's performance satisfies public, poll says
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/08/01/2003061799


Soong, who is a mainland pig part of Chang's butchers, son of Soong a Powerful mainland China family like Chang's, ran for President in 2000, he lost thank goodness. But it was uncovered with official records that he received $20 Mil plus from the Gua Ming Dong (KMT) political party. This techically wasn't a crime because it was the party's money and not TW government money. But in fact the party stole it from the government, (everyone in TW accepts that). ('We are Chinese' I've heard as a reason thousands of times.) They traced at least 7 homes in Calf. purchased, by cash I believe, under Soong's son's name. Here's another ringer. Every child of every KMT offical is an American citizen. I hate Soong. I hate Lien who is the new KMT party chairman. These people are evil prejudice bastards who to this day treat Taiwanese as second class slaves in the country that was theirs. I'm registered some names, kmtpigs, soonglienpigs... for the upcoming election in 2004. I'll post were I make the sites.


President Chun vows to end death penalty - legalize gay marriage Taiwan
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/03/2003070206


xPresident Lee fingers Soong in Chung Hsing case
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/10/23/2003072975

Prosecutors mull arresting Soong relative, confidant
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/24/2003073119


Prying hard facts from James Soong
On Wednesday, former president Lee Teng-hui (óõìoãP) testified before an investigative hearing into the Chung Hsing Bills Finance scandal. Lee's testimony was reportedly highly damaging to People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (ëvë^‡Ô), who has been accused of embezzling funds from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during his time as KMT secretary-general.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/10/24/2003073149


DPP condemns conduct of Hualien KMT council speaker
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/17/2003072124

Pan-blues singing the blues (Pan Pig Soong)
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/10/15/2003071768

xPresident Lee attacks China-centric ideology
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/10/12/2003071351


Police try to track down fugitive (KMT) Chu
Hou said the bureau is working with Chinese police to track down Chu, the former Kaohsiung City council speaker sentenced to 22 months in jail for buying votes.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/10/24/2003073097

[9215]

16. Chiang Kai--Shek was a traitor to the Chinese people!

Two books: Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" and Alfred McCoy's "Politics of Heroin" (recent edition) cite Chiang Kai-Shek involved in drug trafficking and, get this, he even was dealing with the Japanese Army while they were at war with China.

This dung heep later linked up with the CIA and the legendary Air America, Chennault Airlines etc. to bring this lovely substance, opium, to the US.

How his bitch got so popular is a testament to the moral vacuousness of the Conservatively biased media in the US is. History is being distorted when it says anything good about Kai-Shek.

The US sided with Mao during WWII because they knew of Kai-Shek's fascist sympathies. After the war Japanese fascists found a friend in Kai-Shek.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. The media were impressed because

Mme. Chiang had graduated from Wellesley, spoke flawless English, and knew all the right people.

[9215]

19. Isn't it amazing how

these superficial aspects of a thug and dope dealers wife supercede the substance of the people and "causes" she stood for. Nothing in the Press I read even alludes to the Kai-Shek family's thuggery over the decades.

It's all tripe better suited for a Miss Manners column.

[dArKeR]

17. 'Passing marks end of an era' - Taiwan News

Reactions to the death of Ms. Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡), whose life spanned 105 years and three centuries of modern Chinese and Taiwan history, ranged yesterday from praise for "an outstanding woman" to criticism as a scion of a "corrupt family" who "made no contribution to Taiwan's democracy."

But Chen noted that Soong fundamentally belonged to the "corrupt" Kung and Soong "dynasties" and thus contributed to the factors behind the KMT's defeat in China at the hands of the Chinese Communists and left a lasting "bad taste" of the KMT regime's history.

"Soong Mei-ling's death marks a natural and symbolic end to the Republic of China era," said "Contemporary" Monthly editor-in-chief Chin Heng-wei (金恒煒).

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/10/25/1067046891.htm

[9215]

20. Wow. Now we're

getting someplace. I couldn't get the link, but this is really something coming from the island of Taiwan no less.

The OSS's "Wild" Bill Donavan advised against aligning with Kai-Shek forces in China during WWII to fight the Japanese. IMO if the US had aligned with Kai-Shek WWII, at least in the asian theatre, would have been lost--the US's first Vietnam. ((Coincidently)) Kai-Shek backed S. Vietnam's Diem regime and one of the main reasons the Japanese wouldn't back the US war effort in Vietnam was Diem's corruption. Weird stuff.

After WWII China nearly eradicated its opium production and greatly reduced drug addiction through a massive detox program. It's weird that two of the US's most important allies in WWII were Communist: Maoist China and the Soviet Union. I used to laugh at the radical notion that we should have given Italy to the Russians after WWII to take care of the mob, and give Florida to Cuba for the same reason. I'm not laughing as hard at those ideas anymore.

[dArKeR]

21. CNN's Mike Chinoy is a Whore! FACTS but not said: Taiwan was invaded

by a defeated army who was seeking refuge. It had nothing to do with political decisions that 'this is our land and country'. Taiwan was just an island near China which could be defended. This island had nothing to do with China for over 300 years.

Everyone with brain, I guess media not included, knows this.

The media and politicians can so easily put things in terms the stupid can understand when they want. 'WMD', 'terrorist', 'liberal press'... They use these terms to spark a simple brain function in the masses to side with them.

When the Whore speak of China/Taiwan in the news, especially TV media, I'm sure 99.9% of the sheeple have no idea what they're talking about. They bring up this bullshot long story, of 'Nationalists retreating from Mao who was defeating them.' 'Across the straights of Taiwan the KMT retreated to Taiwan.' 'One country two political systems.'...

Why don't they label this what it was, 'Invaded an independent island and seized control.' This is what happened so why doesn't Chinoy and the other Whores say this? A conspiracy?

President Chun should extradite the KMT back to China, along with the artifacts, and the KMT should be tried for whatever crimes they commmited in China and be down with them.

It's the same as a group of Italy Mafia Italian pizza makers immigrate to N.Y. and then Italy claims N.Y. as their territory.

I hope even an American child could understand this analogy so why don't the Media Whores present the truth to the Sheeple?

[renegade000]

22. my grandfather used to navigate the plane that flew her around

[dArKeR]

23. Taiwan in mourning over Madame Chiang's death - IOL Whore story of the

year!

Taipei - Several hundred people poured into temporary memorial halls in Taipei on Saturday to pay their last respects to Madame Chiang Kai-shek, one of the most powerful political figures in pre-communist China and later Taiwan.

The mourners bowed and sobbed, with some even kneeling down to express their condolences to Soong Mayling, also known as Madame Chiang, in front of a huge portrait of her studded with white flowers and a large crucifix.

The widow of Taiwan's military strongman Chiang Kai-shek, who had lived in New York since 1991, died at her Manhattan home peacefully aged 105.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1067071681875B235&set_id=1

Though I think the IOL is a great news source they have no idea about this one. They probably picked this up on a wire and pushlished it.


[e-mail]
No one in Taiwan cares about this women. She hasn't even come to Taiwan in decades. She cares nothing about Taiwan. She cares nothing about the men who followed her husband to Taiwan. She cares nothing about the people in Taiwan her and her husband murdered. The people you talk about morning are 'hired' mourners. Learn a little about this 'practice' 'tradition' of hiring mourners. And believe me, with all the money she and her husband stole from the Taiwanese she can afford it!

[dArKeR]

24. The Dragon Lady who charmed the world - (Sounds like Bush)

Taipei Times Special Report:
Soong Mayling (宋美齡), known to much of the world as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, died in New York yesterday. Her life transcended three centuries, changed the course of China's history and influenced the direction and outcome of World War II. Her death brings to an end the power and the glory, the benevolence and the grievances, the beauty and the loneliness that defined that life. Madame Chiang witnessed the reclamation of Chinese land and dignity from the hands of the Japanese occupying forces. She also witnessed the corruption of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which cost the party its power in China. The Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) regime was able to prolong its life in Taiwan, but the Chiang dynasty's authoritarian rule finally caused the people of Taiwan to embrace democracy and dump the KMT. How much wealth Madame Chiang amassed in Taiwan is still a mystery. What she actually took away when she left Taiwan with 99 pieces of luggage is also the subject of much curiosity, speculation and rumor. Her life was the stuff of legend. With her death, the legend of the Soong family -- which had a massive impact on modern China -- is assigned to history. And it is history that will judge her rights and wrongs in China and Taiwan.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/25/2003073291

I'm telling you, I should work for the Democratic Party. I get to feel some things in my bones, when I don't have much proof but I eventually turn out to be correct.

She stole the articfacts/money with the help of the US Customs service. They were responsible to inspect the luggage.

[dArKeR]

25. So long and good riddance - "Madame Chiang Kai-shek,"

"Of the dead say nothing but good," Plutarch advises. The problem is that in the case of Soong Mayling (宋美齡 , also fawningly known as "Madame Chiang Kai-shek," there isn't any good to be said. Many obiturists have remarked that she was the most famous Chinese woman of the 20th century. What hasn't been said is that she was also perhaps the most evil woman to wield any kind of power during that bleak 100 years and that her influence on almost anything she touched was corrupting and malign.

Soong learned to speak like a Western democrat during her years of schooling in the US, but her psychology was utterly feudal. Her hypocrisy and mendacity were astonishing, perhaps best represented by her convincing Henry Luce, the powerful boss of Life and Time magazines, that she and her husband Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石 , himself a protege of Shanghai's Green Gang and earning millions in the opium trade -- for which he used the Opium Suppression Agency's boats -- represented this religious crank's best hope for "bringing the Chinese to Jesus."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/10/27/2003073589

[dArKeR]

26. Death evokes bitter feelings for Premier Yu

Premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) expressed mixed emotions over the passing of Chiang Soong May-ling at a Legislative Yuan hearing yesterday.

The premier said he still harbored bitter feelings against Madame Chiang and the authoritarian government led by her husband Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) but would withhold his criticism out of respect for the dead.

The premier made the remarks in the Legislature as lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the Taiwan Solidarity Union questioned the wisdom of granting Soong any national honors.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/10/29/1067390555.htm