Jiang Qing

(born 1914?, Zhucheng, Shandong, China—died May 14, 1991, Beijing) Third wife of Mao Zedong and member of the radical Gang of Four. Jiang married Mao in the 1930s but entered politics only in the 1960s. As first deputy head of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang acquired far-reaching powers over China's cultural life and oversaw the total suppression of a wide variety of traditional cultural activities. Arrested after Mao's death and accused of fomenting the widespread civil unrest that characterized the Cultural Revolution, she refused to confess guilt and received a suspended death sentence that was commuted to life imprisonment. Her death was reported as a suicide.

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