陳香梅(Chen Xiangmei)

[bhchao]

Almost every Chinese (except the younger generations) has heard of 陳香梅.

The wife of legendary Flying Tigers leader Claire Chennault, she is well respected in the PRC, ROC, and the United States. She often served as an emissary for interactions between the U.S. and PRC, the U.S. and ROC, and Cross-Strait relations.

Anyone read her autobiography? It created some controversy when it was published, but I have never read it. She was President Nixon's secret emissary to South Vietnam. During the 1968 US presidential election, Nixon sent her to meet with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to tell him that a Nixon presidency will yield better results for the South Vietnam government. Nixon's intention was to derail North-South peace talks to make Hubert Humphrey look bad in the 68' election. Thieu did reject North-South peace talks.

LBJ and Humphrey later found out about Anna's role as Nixon's secret emissary, but still kept their silence after Nixon won the election. In return for their silence, Nixon was to help end the war. Many people to this day view Nixon's action as treasonous. Whether Anna Chennault knew of Nixon's intentions, or was just fulfilling a request made by her longtime friend is another issue.

This may have been a small blight on her resume. Regardless of this, she is held in high esteem on both sides of the Taiwan Strait for her efforts to improve ties between the two sides.

She has served under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan as an intermediary between the three players of this political triangle.

陳香梅 was the first female reporter of the Central News Agency, and met Claire when he was leading the Flying Tigers/Fourteenth Air Force at Kunming. They married despite the age difference of 32 years. Chiang and Madame Chiang saw nothing wrong with it since both of them congratulated the couple on their marriage. The couple followed the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1949.

In 1980, she returned to the mainland for a visit after receiving Deng Xiaoping's invitation. Deng even held a banquet in her honor in the Great Hall of the People.

Today Ms. Chennault visits the mainland frequently and is an active player in promoting cultural exchanges between China and the US, as well as across the Strait.

Checking in with Anna Chan Chennault

Published: December 2001

Source: Sinorama

A legend in the Chinese community, Anna Chan Chennault is still writing tirelessly despite being over 70. She has now published over 50 volumes, and continues to set new personal records for sales.

Anna Chan Chennault is famous for many reasons. She was married to Gen. Claire Chennault. She was the first female reporter for the Central News Agency. She was the first person of Chinese ancestry to be a success in politics in the United States, and in the American capital was known as "the hostess of Washington." She has also acted as a "secret ambassador" in cross-strait relations. Over these many decades, she has sparked controversy in the United States, China, and Taiwan with the publication of her autobiography and collections of her writings. Numerous TV serials based on her life have been produced and broadcast in Taiwan and mainland China.

Chennault is familiar to us, yet also a stranger. She has at times played a significant role in cross-strait relations; but she has always kept a very low profile. Particularly in the last few years, news about her has rarely appeared in the Taiwan media. Some say that she has already moved the focus of her attention to mainland China, while others say that she has left politics altogether. What has she been doing lately? What are her plans for the future?

Since 1981, she has established the "Chen Hsiang-mei Education Prize" (Chen Hsiang-mei being the Mandarin pronunciation of her Chinese name) in more than a dozen cities in mainland China in order to encourage outstanding teachers. Each year she travels to various cities to present the award.

Chennault states: "Over the last two years the PRC has been undertaking a program of opening up its northwestern region. This has made me determined to go to the northwest, which is backward and in need of help." She brought 250 outstanding teachers from that region on an excursion to Beijing, paying all the costs herself, and also gave them each a prize of 2500 yuan (about US$300).

Besides creating these awards, she has also founded several "Hsiang-mei schools," covering all the costs out of her own pocket.

Anna Chennault explains that she herself comes from a world in chaos. In her teens, because of the war against Japan, she too experienced the life of the itinerant student, and now in her later years she considers education to be especially important.

In contrast to earlier times, when Chennault was very active in Taiwan, in the past few years she has been working to give something back to her motherland, mainland China. When she comes to Taiwan, she usually is just passing through and doesn't stay for long.

Nevertheless, the people of Taiwan have never forgotten her. Last year a cable TV station again broadcast the story of her life. The series put particular emphasis on her love story with Gen. Chennault.

To be sure, the amazing story of Anna Chan Chennault's life really began with her marriage to Claire Chennault.

Her father was a diplomat, and when Anna Chan was small she was the most opinionated and stubborn of all the kids. In an autobiographical book published in 1991, she recalls that her father told her that she was the most ill-behaved child in the family, that she had too many independent ideas, and that he didn't like her.

At that time, China was in chaos because of the war against Japan. Anna's father wanted to send all six of his daughters abroad to study. But she was determined to go her own way, so she rejected her father's decision. As a consequence, she experienced a nomadic student life at middle school in Hong Kong and at Lingnan University in Guangdong.

In 1945, Anna Chan turned 20 and graduated from university. She joined the Central News Agency as a reporter, becoming the first woman to do so.

At first, she was assigned to do stories on the wives of American officers in China. But she was very unhappy with the disdainful attitude that the officers' wives had toward women reporters. She then asked to be transferred to reporting directly on the U.S. military, and this is how she met Claire Chennault.

Early in the war against Japan, because the United States had not yet entered the war, General Chennault had to resign his military commission and go to China as a civilian to help the Republican government organize an air force. The Flying Tigers squadron that he trained made him immensely popular among Chinese servicemen and civilians alike.

Anna Chennault recalls that when she first interviewed her future husband, she still had her hair done up into two braids like a little schoolgirl. Her father, who already knew the general, had asked him to look out for his daughter. Chennault agreed to take on this responsibility. The more time that Anna spent with him, the more she admired him; and the two quickly fell in love.

At that time, Chinese society did not look kindly upon this kind of love affair between an older foreign man and a younger Chinese woman. In addition, in the 1950s, American diplomatic and military personnel were not allowed to marry foreign women except under special circumstances, further adding to the difficulties of the relationship. But Anna Chan never wavered, and changed her family's initial opposition by taking a light-hearted approach.

Similarly, the couple adopted a light-hearted, positive attitude to overcome her parents' opposition. In the end her father merely asked that Chennault remain in China, which was no problem for him, as he promised he would stay in China and help China build its air force. He even came to Taiwan when the Nationalist government retreated here.

Their relationship was sweet but short. After eleven years of marriage, Claire Chennault died of lung cancer back in his home in Louisiana, leaving Anna Chan -- now better known as Mrs. Anna Chennault -- a widow with two daughters.

The most immediate problem for Anna Chennault was financial. Prior to the general's death, because Claire Chennault had followed the Nationalist regime to Taiwan, there were legal problems over the airline he had founded, with lawsuits tied up in Hong Kong for two years. In the end, he had no choice but to sell his airline to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. His wife never knew anything about this matter. It was only after he died that the CIA pushed her to leave the company. The new boss even wanted her to cut off her ties with Taiwan altogether, because "Chennault was seen as being too close to Chiang Kai-shek."

Anna Chennault says that she really felt like a mistreated orphan. Fortunately she got a letter from an attorney asking her to go to Washington to handle some matters related to the late general. She also felt that Washington would be a better place to educate her children, and so moved there, thereby creating a whole new life for herself.

When she first got to Washington, she found a job translating foreign language textbooks into English for Georgetown University. She says that this job greatly improved her English ability, so that she was able to hold her own in society thereafter.

Chennault gradually built up a reputation in academia, and later was hired as a program host by the Voice of America. She also wrote articles for the media in Taiwan. Later, through introductions from friends, Chennault became active in Washington social circles. She was very active in Republican Party affairs, with posts including co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee's Finance Committee (1966-1983) and twice chairman of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Because she helped a number of Republican presidential candidates in elections, she gained the trust of the White House. U.S. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan all asked her to take on various informal tasks for them. In 1963, president Kennedy named her the chairman of the Chinese Refugees Relief Committee, making her the first person of Chinese ancestry to be named to the White House staff.

Besides actively participating in politics, she also got involved in business, and served as an executive in "Flying Tiger Airlines."

As Chennault became increasingly prominent in mainstream political activities and gradually built up her status in DC social circles, she came to be known in the U.S. capital as "the hostess of Washington."

Chennault has maintained good relations with Republican presidents in the United States, and also has deep ties with the government of the Republic of China. In addition, her uncle Liao Chengzhi was a high-ranking official in mainland China. In the early 1980s, as mainland China began to open up to the outside world, it was only natural that Chennault should serve as an envoy between the three points of the triangle. In 1980, shortly after Ronald Reagan's presidential election victory, she was sent to Beijing as a special ambassador to meet with Deng Xiaoping. When Chiang Ching-kuo was ROC president, she worked hard to get the government to allow old mainlander soldiers living in Taiwan, who had been separated from their homes for more than 40 years, to return to mainland China to visit their relatives; she also helped in getting tacit agreement from the mainland side. In 1989, she headed a trade group from the U.S. Council for International Cooperation-which also included Taiwan businessmen-on a visit to China, marking the beginning of Taiwan business activities in mainland China.

"I don't like to make a big deal about the things I do, because that makes it easier to get things done. For example, a lot of people going back and forth across the Taiwan Strait are very busy leaking information to reporters, with the result being a lot of confusing signals, so that high-ranking Communist Chinese officials have become more reticent about receiving visitors in recent years," she says.

Time passes and things change. In recent years, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have been at a new crossroads for peace and prosperity. Would Chennault be willing to again serve as a secret ambassador between the two sides? Laughing she answers: "Nobody has asked me." She points out that there has been a generational change in the regimes on both sides. The new leaders have less of a historical burden to bear, and both sides are better informed and educated. She believes that under this generation cross-strait relations will move in a peaceful direction. As for any role as a secret ambassador, she laughs that this also should be passed on to the next generation, and that she would rather focus on education and writing these days.

Chennault published her first collection of poetry and essays when she was only 20. She has so far published more than 50 works in English and Chinese.

Anna Chan Chennault has experienced a great romance, has played an important role in U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, and now wishes to enjoy her autumn years. Those of us who have observed her life cannot help but ask, though there may indeed be a new generation on the rise, who can take her place?

[bhchao]

Photo of 陳香梅and Claire Chennault