The Chinese government confirmed Tuesday that Jiang Qing, the widow of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung who was jailed and reviled after his death, committed suicide last month in her villa in Beijing. She was 77.
Jiang rose from being a little-known movie actress to one of the most powerful players in Chinese politics through her marriage to Mao, but ended her days denounced as an "enemy of the people."The state-run Xinhua News Agency said that Jiang had committed suicide on May 14, but did not say how. On Monday, the Chinese government had refused to confirm a report in Time magazine that Jiang had hanged herself.
Tuesday's announcement was held until the last hour of the June 3-4 anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, a sensitive time during which police already were mobilized to prevent any public disturbances.
Xinhua said Jiang had been receiving medical treatment since May 1984 but did not specify her illness. It also said she had been released from custody for the treament.
At a three-month show trial that began Nov. 20, 1980, Jiang was theatrically defiant, shouting slogans at the judges. She never confessed to any crime.
"Everything I did, Mao told me to do. I was his dog - what he said to bite, I bit," she said.