Read the instructor’s\u00a0introduction<\/a> Various imprints of the Orient are palpable across the United States: its languages, its spiced cuisines, its Chinatowns. The prevalent Asian-American heritage in the American society further enhances America\u2019s image as a melting pot of cultures. Yet Asian culture did not integrate into America\u2019s cultural pot instantly. Asians, especially the Chinese, have been subject to blatant discriminations in the U.S. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for instance, prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers into the U.S., claiming that such influx of foreign workers \u201cendangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof.\u201d[1]<\/span> Sixty-one years later, however, a petite Chinese woman donning a black cheongsam <\/em>dress stood confidently before the U.S. Congress. \u201cWe in China, like you, want a better world, not for ourselves alone, but for all mankind, and we must have it,\u201d said the woman, Mayling Soong.[2]<\/span> Born in 1898 in Shanghai to a wealthy Christian family and educated in America, Soong spoke fluent English with a thick American Southern accent. Being the First Lady of China through her marriage with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China from 1927 to 1975, Soong was also popularly referred to as Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Her appearance before Congress was part of her 1943 U.S. tour, which aimed to garner American support for China\u2019s war against Japan in World War II. But most of Madame Chiang\u2019s rhetoric, which frequently echoed the principles of democracy, were merely publicity stunts, according to Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, in her article \u201cChina Doll: Madame Chiang and her times.\u201d[3]<\/span> \u201cBeloved by some and reviled by others, [Madame Chiang] always insists that her goal is to promote democracy, even though she is also clearly perfecting the art of promoting herself,\u201d Rosen wrote. Being \u201ca political figure in her own right,\u201d Rosen argued, was Madame Chiang\u2019s utmost priority.[4]<\/span> Nevertheless, Madame Chiang\u2019s prowess still contributed to the positive perception of the East in the West.<\/p>\n During the heyday of her popularity in the late 1930s to early 1940s, Madame Chiang ardently delivered speeches and wrote articles for both Chinese and international audiences. Having spent a decade of her formative years in the U.S., Madame Chiang had been familiar with Western thought\u2014she briefly attended Wesleyan College in Georgia and studied English literature and philosophy at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In May 1942, she wrote an essay for the Atlantic <\/em>entitled \u201cChina Emergent,\u201d which starts by decrying the calamities of war, particularly the brutal exploitation of China by Japan.[5]<\/span><\/span> In asserting China\u2019s equality among nations, she condemned past exploitations of China by Western countries. She recalled the Qing Dynasty, the monarchy that ruled China before the Republican government\u2019s revolutionary foundation in 1912, powerlessly yielding to Western countries\u2019 demands of opening five trading ports\u2014Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo, Fuchow, and Amoy\u2014where they enjoyed extraterritorial rights. \u201cAmerica and Britain have already shown their consciousness of error by voluntarily offering to abrogate the iniquitous system of extraterritoriality that denied China her inherent right to equality with other nations,\u201d Madame Chiang wrote.[6]<\/span><\/span> She then denounced unjust systems, such as unfair wealth distribution, that prevailed globally; however, she stressed the Chinese people\u2019s reluctance to pursue communism, relating it to authoritarianism and the absolutism of the single-party system. \u201cChina,\u201d Madame Chiang dubbed, \u201cis the Columbus of democracy,\u201d as popular vote conferred power upon three Chinese emperors in the ancient times, long before the rise of Western democratic thought.[7]<\/span><\/span> Madame Chiang stated that the Republic of China pursues a kind of socialism embedded with democratic principles through the Three Principles of the People (San Min Chu I)<\/em>, a set of ideologies\u2014Nationalism, People\u2019s Rights, and People\u2019s Livelihood\u2014coined by the country\u2019s founder, Sun Yat-sen. The Three Principles of the People, the First Lady asserted, \u201cis no mere pale reflection of Western socialism.\u201d[8]<\/span><\/span> Although she admitted that Chinese democracy \u201cwill undoubtedly be influenced by the Jeffersonian views of equality of opportunity and the rights of the individual,\u201d the Chinese system will not merely imitate that of America\u2019s and will serve China\u2019s needs and traditions.[9]<\/span><\/span> Madame Chiang concluded that upon the Allied Powers\u2019 victory in World War II, there should be peaceful governance of people of all races.<\/p>\n Responding to Madame Chiang\u2019s rhetorical products, such as \u201cChina Emergent,\u201d Rosen deemed Madame Chiang\u2019s promotion of democracy \u201cyet another irony of history.\u201d[10]<\/span><\/span> Rosen argued that Madame Chiang\u2019s emphasis on democratic ideals is misleading, as Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s regime was, in reality, repressive and autocratic. Led by the Generalissimo, the Nationalist Party was, in effect, the sole political party of China, as the Generalissimo had been striving to rid the Chinese Communist Party[11]<\/span><\/span>\u2014the reality contradicts Madame Chiang\u2019s disagreement over the single-party system in \u201cChina Emergent.\u201d Despite these rhetorical inaccuracies, Rosen\u2019s absolute dismissal of the Chinese First Lady\u2019s war efforts is overgeneralized. Rosen overlooked the palpable aspect of Madame Chiang\u2019s rhetoric: the assertion of China\u2019s equality among other nations amid stigmatized perceptions of the Orient, especially in America.<\/p>\n Since the 18th<\/sup> century, China has been a popular trading partner for Western nations. In the early 1800s, Warren Delano, an American trader who would later be the grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, stationed himself in Canton and garnered immense wealth. During his decade in China, Delano witnessed the Qing Dynasty succumbing to Western demands, such as the ceding of Hong Kong Island to Great Britain. Most notably, he was never interested in learning the country\u2019s culture and customs. Delano believed that China was a \u201cpitiful, drug-addicted, backward pagan mess of a place,\u201d noted historical nonfiction author James Bradley in The China Mirage<\/em>.[12]<\/span><\/span> Correspondingly, China viewed itself as the most righteous, deeming Westerners as \u201cbarbarians.\u201d Delano, in accordance with the prevailing trend at that time, wished for Western traders to \u201c[have] Christianized and westernized enclaves [in China] where they could conduct themselves as they wished, under their own rules,\u201d Bradley recounted.[13]<\/span><\/span> His wish was supported by American missionaries, who had built schools and churches in China, hoping to Americanize and Christianize the Chinese.<\/p>\n When Madame Chiang addressed the international community, she was the quintessential representation of the \u201cChristianized and westernized\u201d China. Charmed by Madame Chiang, who encapsulated President Roosevelt\u2019s grandfather\u2019s vision of China, the U.S. showered China with billions of dollars of war support from 1941 to 1945. However, in garnering support for her country, Madame Chiang did not simply showcase China as an Americanized nation; she stressed that the \u201cChina\u201d she represented was not the same imperial dynasty that caved in disgracefully to Western exploitation, but a revived nation that embodies its inherent democratic values. \u201cAny governmental policy in China ought to take cognizance of the all-important fact that we are an agricultural nation,\u201d[14]<\/span><\/span> wrote Madame Chiang in \u201cChina Emergent.\u201d She mentioned that under Republican China, the Chinese people have advanced toward better standards, such as accessibility to education, shelter, and hygiene. In practice, according to Rosen, such standards were not met due to the Generalissimo\u2019s corrupt and polarized government. Nevertheless, Madame Chiang, together with her husband, made efforts to revive the Chinese people\u2019s mentality. In 1934, Generalissimo and Madame Chiang launched the Chinese people\u2019s guidebook of social renewal entitled the New Life Movement<\/em>, which revived the ancient Chinese virtues of etiquette (Li)<\/em>, justice (I)<\/em>, integrity (Lien)<\/em>, and respect (Chih)<\/em>. Written before the Japanese aggression in China, the guidebook aimed to reinvigorate the Chinese people\u2019s spirit after years of domestic unrest due to warlordism, wrote Madame Chiang in her book \u201cChina Shall Rise Again,\u201d which included a summary of the New Life Movement<\/em>.[15]<\/span><\/span> The guidebook , Madame Chiang explained, aims \u201cto satisfy both psychological and physical needs,\u201d such as cleanliness and the promotion of cooperation.[16]<\/span><\/span> These practical standards might have been influenced by Madame Chiang\u2019s education in America and Christian upbringing; she might have been appalled by the sight of Chinese people being \u201cbenumbed, impoverished, and reduced to beggary.\u201d[17]<\/span><\/span> Other than reminding citizens of their \u201cindividual and collective rights, duties, and responsibilities,\u201d the New Life Movement<\/em> also strived to repel undemocratic legacies of Imperial China under Manchu (Qing Dynasty) rule. \u201c[T]he off-setting of the inertia caused by hundreds of years of Manchu misrule which, by excluding the masses from participation in State affairs and administration, killed national consciousness and produced an apathy calamitous to national progress and well-being,\u201d Madame Chiang declared.[18]<\/span><\/span> Through her rhetoric, Madame Chiang appealed to the democratic world that China embodies its own unique democratic values, which have similarities to Western thought but are not merely replicas of Western ideals.<\/p>\n Through her performance as a vocal and astute first lady, Madame Chiang exposed to the world a distinct persona of Chinese women. Madame Chiang\u2019s traits as a political leader\u2019s wife were similar to those of American first ladies, such as President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s wife, Ellen Wilson, who advocated for social causes, and President Warren Harding\u2019s wife, Florence Harding, who spoke frequently in public, noted Daniel Paul Lintin in his University of Minnesota dissertation.[19]<\/span><\/span> Other traits of U.S. first ladies, such as \u201covert support of their husbands\u2019 administrative policies\u201d and \u201cworking with the media,\u201d were also embodied by Madame Chiang. Lintin wrote that \u201c[b]ecause of similar efforts on her part, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was hailed in the United States as the First Lady of China.\u201d[20]<\/span><\/span> In 1929, two years after her marriage with the Generalissimo, Madame Chiang spoke in an interview with British Movietone News, mentioning how Chinese women \u201chave lived a more or less sheltered life.\u201d[21]<\/span><\/span> The First Lady said that Chinese women had been effacing themselves by being dutiful wives and wise mothers. However, inspired by Sun Yat-sen\u2019s Three Principles of the People, Chinese women had begun to gain economic and political liberty, she said. \u201c[T]he women themselves have been quick to realize that with this new privilege, they must fit themselves for their new responsibilities,\u201d[22]<\/span><\/span> said Madame Chiang. Thus, it may be true that Madame Chiang may have striven to become a prominent political figure apart from her husband, as Rosen argued. Yet despite her supposed motives, Madame Chiang had nonetheless ameliorated the stigma towards Chinese culture in the West through her rhetoric.<\/p>\n In her 1943 U.S. tour, Madame Chiang also underlined the Chinese people\u2019s persistence amid Japanese ruthless aggression. Madame Chiang, who was invited to the U.S. by President Roosevelt, clearly had the objective of garnering financial and military support for her country. Even so, she maintained China\u2019s position as equal among other nations instead of desperately kowtowing to Western demands. Lintin wrote that \u201c[t]hrough her rhetorical actions, both in word and deed, Madame Chiang demonstrated her intense belief in democracy and her commitment to a future democratic system in China.\u201d[23]<\/span><\/span> Madame Chiang charmed her American audience by showcasing her familiarity with the American people. In her speech before the U.S. Congress, Madame Chiang used the beginning \u201cLet us\u201d in an anaphoric manner for four times, all of which condemn Japanese atrocities; such rhetorical device is also used in the U.S. Declaration of Independence\u2019s indictment\u2014and later in Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech in 1963. \u201cLet us not forget that during the first four and a half years of total aggression China has borne Japan\u2019s sadistic fury unaided and alone,\u201d said Madame Chiang. She further projected her familiarity with the American people by recollecting her American education and praising America as \u201cthe cauldron of democracy\u201d and \u201cthe incubator of democratic principles.\u201d[24]<\/span><\/span> Then, she conjoined her ideological references with those of China\u2019s, such as Sun Yat-sen\u2019s encouragement for \u201cthe fortitude to carry on.\u201d[25]<\/span><\/span> In essence, she emphasized China\u2019s equal standing among nations by underlining the importance of cooperation. \u201cSince international interdependence is now so universally recognized, can we not also say that all nations should become members of one corporate body?\u201d Madame Chiang inquired, reiterating the 1942 Declaration of United Nations by the Allies of World War II, which China had been part of. With that being said, she appealed for Congress to help China in its war efforts against Japanese aggression, stating that the Allies should not easily succumb to mere convenient solutions at the cost of the failure to bring peace. \u201cWe shall have faith that, at the writing of peace, America and our other gallant Allies will not be obtunded by the mirage of contingent reasons of expediency,\u201d[26]<\/span><\/span> Madame concluded. As she brought home full-fledged American support, Madame Chiang also implanted China\u2019s revived image on American soil.<\/p>\n The Republic of China government under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek may have been riddled with considerable shortcomings: its corruption, its nepotism, its failure to actualize its demagogic rhetoric. The Chinese people themselves had been outraged by Chiang\u2019s unjust regime\u2014following the Chinese Communists\u2019 victory in the Chinese Civil War, Generalissimo and Madame, with the entire Nationalist government, relocated to the island of Taiwan in 1949, never to set foot again on mainland China. Nevertheless, Mayling Soong\u2019s rhetoric, especially during World War II, contributed toward the correction of Westerners\u2019 misperceptions of China\u2014nine months after Madame Chiang\u2019s Congress speech, President Roosevelt repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, regarding the gesture as \u201ca manifestation on the part of the American people of their affection and regard.\u201d[27]<\/span><\/span> Rosen\u2019s dismissal of Madame Chiang\u2019s contributions as \u201can irony of history\u201d belittles the struggles of the Chinese people in acquiring a valid position on the world stage. Mayling Soong\u2019s rhetoric serves a symbol of the Orient\u2019s desire to thrive among and beyond the Western world.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u201cTranscript of Chinese Exclusion Act (1882),\u201d Our Documents <\/em>(website), accessed February 22, 2016, http:\/\/www.ourdocuments.gov\/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47&page=transcript.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Mayling Soong Chiang, \u201cSoong Mei-Ling, \u2018Addresses To The House Of Representatives And To The Senate,\u2019 February 18, 1943,\u201d US-China Institute <\/em>(website), USC US-China Institute, accessed February 21, 2016.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Christine Rosen, \u201cChina Doll: Madame Chiang and her times,\u201d The Weekly Standard<\/em> 12, no. 28 (2007): 33, accessed February 22, 2016, http:\/\/search.proquest.com\/docview\/233001502?accountid=9676.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0Rosen, \u201cChina Doll,\u201d 33.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0Mayling Soong Chiang, \u201cChina emergent,\u201d in We Chinese Women: Speeches and Writings During the First United Nations Year <\/em>(New York: The John Day Company, 1943), 28.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0Chiang, \u201cChina emergent,\u201d 28.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0Ibid., 30.<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0Ibid.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0Ibid., 34.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0Rosen, \u201cChina Doll,\u201d 35.<\/p>\n 11.\u00a0Ibid., 34.<\/p>\n 12.\u00a0James Bradley, The China Mirage<\/em> (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015), 28.<\/p>\n 13.\u00a0Bradley, \u201cThe China Mirage,\u201d <\/em>23.<\/p>\n 14.\u00a0Chiang, \u201cChina emergent,\u201d 29.<\/p>\n 15.\u00a0Mayling Soong Chiang, China Shall Rise Again<\/em> (New York and London: Harpers & Brothers Publishers, 1941), 287.<\/p>\n 16.\u00a0Chiang, \u201cChina Shall Rise Again,\u201d <\/em>288.<\/p>\n 17.\u00a0Ibid., 287.<\/p>\n 18.\u00a0Ibid., 288.<\/p>\n 19.\u00a0Daniel Paul Lintin, \u201cFrom First Lady to Dragonlady: A Rhetorical Study of Madame Chiang\u2019s Public Personae Before and During Her 1943 U.S. Tour\u201d (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2001), 112.<\/p>\n 20.\u00a0Lintin, \u201cFrom First Lady to Dragonlady,\u201d 112.<\/p>\n 21.\u00a0British Movietone. \u201cPresident of China,\u201d British Movietone <\/em>video, 2:56, July 29, 1929, http:\/\/www.aparchive.com\/metadata\/youtube\/961012ace2f1444a9d564dc5407e1454.<\/p>\n 22.\u00a0British Movietone.<\/p>\n 23.\u00a0Lintin, \u201cFrom First Lady to Dragonlady,\u201d 213.<\/p>\n 24.\u00a0Chiang, \u201cAddresses.\u201d<\/p>\n 25.\u00a0Ibid.<\/p>\n 26.\u00a0Ibid.<\/p>\n 27.\u00a0Franklin D. Roosevelt, \u201cStatement on Signing the Bill to Repeal the Chinese Exclusion Laws,\u201d The American Presidency Project<\/em> (website), The American Presidency Project, accessed March 3, 2016, http:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/ws\/?pid=16354.<\/p>\n \u201cOur Documents \u2013 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).\u201d Our Documents<\/em>. May 6, 1882.\u00a0http:\/\/www.ourdocuments.gov\/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47&page=transcript.<\/p>\n Bradley, James. The China Mirage<\/em>. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015.<\/p>\n British Movietone. \u201cPresident of China.\u201d British Movietone <\/em>video, 2:56. July 29, 1929.\u00a0http:\/\/www.aparchive.com\/metadata\/youtube\/961012ace2f1444a9d564dc5407e1454.<\/p>\n Chiang, Mayling Soong. \u201cChina emergent.\u201d In We Chinese Woman: Speeches and Writings During the First\u00a0<\/em>United Nations Year, <\/em>28\u201334. New York: The John Day Company, 1943.<\/p>\n
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