USA: WASHINGTON: CHIANG KAI-SHEK CELEBRATES HER 100TH BIRTHDAY

(20 Mar 1997) English/Nat

The widow of the once-feared Chinese general and Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, has been celebrating her one hundredth birthday at her home in New York.

She and her husband ruled China until 1949 when they fled into exile in Taiwan following the success of Mao Zedong's Communist Party.

There they ruled together with an iron fist until he died in 1975 and his widow moved to America.

Madame Chiang now lives in America.

She's seen here during the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and her efforts for the Allied cause in Asia.

Madame Chiang moved to New York's Long Island after her husband's death in 1975.

For her it was a return home

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I came here as a child, spent my formative years here, and stayed through college. Therefore I will always think of America as my second home and it is good to be back home again."
SUPER CAPTION: Madame Chiang Kai-shek

More than half a century ago Madame Chiang became only the second woman to address both houses of the U-S Congress.

During the war she was a frequent guest of American leaders - holding audience with her husband Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Her birthday isn't being celebrated back home in Taiwan where they've erected a monument bearing an inscription holding the general responsible for ordering troops to slaughter thousands of Taiwanese in the 1947 massacre.

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