Defying Death

Mao's widow is spared

She was found guilty of "towering and heinous" crimes and unceremoniously hustled out of court, defiantly screaming, "Down with revisionism!" Jiang Qing, now 69, Chairman Mao's headstrong widow and imperious ringleader of the leftist Gang of Four, was sentenced to death, but given two years in prison to repent.

Jiang is rumored to have spent those years making dolls, then rendering them unusable by embroidering her name on them. Party Chief Hu Yaobang told journalists last August that "she persists in behaving as a political and ideological enemy of our people." Yet when Jiang's reprieve expired last week, China's Supreme People's Court commuted her sentence to life in prison. Her apparently impenitent coconspirator, former Vice Premier Zhang Chunqiao, 65, received a similar reprieve. The court's somewhat lame explanation: the criminals had not "resisted reform in a flagrant way."

A onetime movie starlet, Jiang beguiled Mao sufficiently to become his fourth wife and, from 1966 to 1976, the remorseless doyenne of the Cultural Revolution. During that purge, the Gang of Four (Jiang; Zhang; Wang Hongwen, 48, now serving a life sentence; and Yao Jiang in court Wenyuan, 51, serving 20 years) was responsible for some 35,000 deaths. They persecuted former Head of State Liu Shaoqi and vilified China's current leader, Deng Xiaoping, 78. Following the group's 1976 arrest one month after Mao's death, Jiang was reviled as a "white-boned demon," a perfidious serpent, a harridan and a trollop.

Why the leniency now? One reason is that Mao is still widely revered in China, and the execution of his widow would be seen as a dishonor to his memory. It might also make her something of a martyr and inflame those ultraleftists now in hiding. By sparing her, the new government can reinforce its image of moderation and self-confidence. Says a Chinese official: "A political consideration is, of course, foremost: to preserve the current unity and stability in our country. Besides, she no longer has the ability to stir up trouble."

Deng, who has himself fallen from power twice (in 1966 and 1976) and has twice recovered, is unlikely to extend his mercy to Jiang's partisans. A total of 33 leftists have been given long prison sentences in the past six months. Peking's leadership also issued an unpublished and unqualified addendum to the court's ruling: "Those who deserve to be punished will be punished." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.