China’s Russian Princess: the Silent Wife of Chiang Ching-kuo tells the extraordinary story of a person unknown in history. Her Chinese name was "蒋方良" and Russian name Faina Ipat'evna Vakhreva. Chiang Ching-kuo met Faina at a heavy machinery plant in Yekaterinburg in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. He was a hostage of Josef Stalin, who used him as leverage against his father Chiang Kai-shek. He is considered to be one of the most enlightened political leaders of the 20th Century. A factory worker, Faina thought she would spend her life with her husband in the Soviet Union. Instead, they move to China in 1937, live through the anti-Japanese war and the civil war and then move to Taiwan in 1949. She is the constant companion of her husband who had a remarkable career. He was the ‘son of the Emperor’ and his closest adviser and lived on the front life of the tumultuous history of China in the 20th century.

Hear from Mark O’Neill as he shares his insights on how a simple Russian lady adapted to life in China’s First Family and then in Taiwan under martial law. During her lifetime, Faina lost her husband and three sons. Mark will share her astonishing story, a story of feminine strength and determination. 

Mark O’Neill was born in London and educated at Oxford University. He has worked in Washington DC, Manchester and Belfast. He has worked in Asia since 1978, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Mainland China and Japan, for BBC, Reuters, South China Morning Post and other media. He has written 11 books, five of which have Chinese as well as English editions. The two most recent were “Israel and China: from the Tang Dynasty to Silicon Wadi” & “How the South Asians Helped to Make Hong Kong”. He lives in Hong Kong and works as an author, teacher and columnist. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, French and Japanese.