Born in Shanghai, Tse-veng Soong (December 4, 1894--April 24, 1971) was a famous Chinese financier in 20th century. His father Charles Jones Soong (Song Jiashu) was a minister and rich businessman. His three sisters: Soong Ai-ling, Soong Ching-ling and Soong May-ling, who were called “the Soong Sisters”, were all legendary figures and their husbands: H.H. Kung, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek were all in close relationships with Tse-veng Soong.

Tse-veng Soong graduated from Saint John's University in Shanghai and later studied in Harvard University and Columbia University in the U.S., and respectively received master’s degree and Ph. D. degree in economics.

After he returned to China, Tse-veng Soong became an English secretary of Sun Yat-sen and was later appointed governor of the Central Bank of China and minister of finance in the Kuomintang-controlled government during 1920s and 1930s. After the “9.18 incident” in Northeast China, Tse-veng Soong delivered several public speeches on different occasions to reveal the cruelty of Japanese militarism. In December, 1936 when the Xi’an incident happened, Tse-veng Soong and his sister Soong May-ling supported and made a great contribution to the peaceful settlement of this incident and the second Kuomintang-CPC cooperation in anti-Japanese War. During the war, he financially supported Flying Tigers, the 1st American Volunteer Group that operated within the Chinese Air Force. In 1945, as the head of the Chinese delegation, he attended the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, which later became the United Nations.

It is said that Tse-veng Soong accumulated a big sum of fortune during and after the anti-Japanese War. Chiang Kai-shek, H. H. Kung, Chen Li-fu and he were named “China's four big families” at that time, very typical representatives of Chinese bureaucrat bourgeoisie. He once made investments in Dupont Corp. and General Motors in the U.S. The Asian Wall Street Journal asserted that Tse-veng Soong has already been the richest man in the world by 1940s, whose assets amounted to 70 million US dollars.

Tse-veng Soong fell in love with his future wife Zhang Yueqia, daughter of a housing developer, at the first sight on Mount Lushan, a famous scenic spot in China. After Kuomintang failed in the Chinese civil war, Tse-veng Soong and his wife moved to New York and lived there till his death.