Ai Ch'ing or Ai Qing, pseud. of Chiang Hai-ch'eng or Jiang Haicheng, 1910-96, Chinese poet. After studying painting in France (1929-32), he returned to China where he wrote modernist poetry in flamboyant free verse that showed the influence of the Soviet poet Mayakovsky. He was active in Communist literary circles in the 1940s and 50s. From 1958, following the anti-intellectual campaign of 1957, until 1975, he was detained in state farms. He returned to writing poetry with the same fervent political voice found in his earlier work. He is widely regarded as one of modern China's finest poets.