5. Tse-ven Soong (1894-1971)

Occupation: Financier, government official

Source of wealth: Banking, fraud

Assets: Blue-chip stocks, cash

Claim to fame: Used Chinese treasury to invest in General Motors Corp.

An official of the Chinese Nationalist Government from 1927 to 1949, Soong was said to be the richest man in the world during the 1940s. If not the wealthiest, he was surely one of the most powerful. The son of a prominent Methodist industrialist, Soong graduated from Harvard University and quickly rose in the financial world as a banker. In 1923, he financed the Nationalist party of Sun Yat-sen, his brother-in-law. Soong established the Central Bank of China, which became the government treasury in 1924 when Soong was appointed the minister of finance. In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek — Sun Yat-sen’s rival and Soong’s other brother-in-law — rose to power, and Soong served as his finance minister. He was appointed minister of foreign affairs in 1942, and became a master at mustering Washington’s support for China. Using his easy access to the Chinese treasury, he made large personal investments in foreign stock, including holdings in General Motors Corp. and DuPont Co. A wartime dossier on Soong states that he “started out his public career with rather limited resources and [by January 1943] had amassed over $70 million” (worth about $660 million in today’s dollars). When the Soviets captured mainland China in 1949, Soong moved to San Francisco, where he kept a lower profile.

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