Born in 1898 to a wealthy family in Shanghai, she was the fourth of the six children of Yaoju "Charlie" Soong, a Methodist minister and successful Chinese businessman who made a fortune selling Bibles in China. Mr. Soong's commercial publishing empire was instrumental in financing the Chinese Nationalist movement which ultimately overthrew China's Qing dynasty in 1911. But more importantly, it was Mr. Soong's three daughters who helped transform their country. A famous Chinese song about the Soong sisters says: "One loved money, one loved power and one loved China."

Soong Ai-Ling, the eldest married China's finance minister, H.H. Kung, a wealthy descendant of Confucius. Soon Ching-Ling, the middle sister married Sun Yat Sen, leader of the Nationalist revolution that overthrew China's last emperor. Mme. Chiang was the sister who "loved power." She married Chiang Kai-Shek in 1927 after she had returned to China from nine years of schooling in the United States. Chiang Kai-Shek was 11 years her senior, a Buddhist and married. The son of a salt seller who had become a soldier, he succeeded Sun Yat Sen as head of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) when the father of modern China died in 1925.   Anxious to solidify his claim to the leadership, Mr. Chiang is said to have first asked Soong Ching-Li to marry him but was rejected by Sun Yat Sen's widow. When he turned to Soong Mei-Ling, the youngest sister, the proposed marriage was vehemently opposed by the woman's mother who insisted that Chiang Kai-Shek had to first get a divorce and promise to convert to Christianity. He ultimately did both and the pair were married in a private family service by a YMCA chaplain. They then  held a second public ceremony at Shanghai's Majestic Hotel with 1,300 invited guests and thousands of uninvited gawkers. Around the time of his marriage, Mr. Chiang's fortune soared. He became head of the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, adopted the title generalissimo and launched a militaray campaign to conquer northern China. He also set out to exterminate 5,000 communists in Shanghai and allied himself with the city's most notorious gangsters.               Mme. Chiang served as her husband's secretary and his chief diplomat, ran the government's propaganda operations while sharing in decision-making.  She prepared daily summaries of the English language news for the Generalissimo, acted as his interpreter and helped him understand the social nuances of Western behaviour.