Jiang Qing

Few twentieth-century lives swing as violently as Jiang Qing's. What fascinates me is the arc itself: a Shandong-born woman who acted under the name Lan Ping in 1930s Shanghai, only to end up at the absolute center of the Cultural Revolution as the wife of Mao Zedong and leader of the Gang of Four. I am not here to litigate her record, which history has judged harshly enough. But I keep returning to the idea of an aspiring actress finding herself cast in the bloodiest political drama of her age, and wondering what she believed she was doing. That gap between the dream and the reality is haunting.

Name (English)

Jiang Qing

Name (Japanese)

江青

Born

March 5, 1914 – May 14, 1991

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Tiger

Origin

Zhucheng, People's Republic of China

Occupation

actor / politician / film actor

University

Military and Political University of Resistance Against Japan

Awards & achievements

• 1964 Royal Order of Cambodia

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang%20Qing
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F%E9%9D%92
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q236017

Tags

• actor
• politician
• film actor

Last updated

2026-06-17

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.