Defiant Widow in the Dock

Jiang Qing is challenged by some tough evidence

The star defendant last week at the great show trial in Peking was once again Jiang Qing, widow of Mao Tse-tung and head of China's notorious Gang of Four. In the dock for the third time since the proceedings began on Nov. 20 Jiang seemed calmly defiant and unrepentant as she listened to the most serious charge against her: organizing the persecution of former Head of State Liu Shaoqi during the chaotic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. Liu, who died in disgrace in 1969, was posthumously restored to favor last year.

The most dramatic moment came when the court played a recording of a speech made by Jiang to the Peking Opera troupe on Sept. 18, 1968. First almost cooing, then suddenly shouting, her voice was heard on the scratchy recording: "I tell you, Liu Shaoqi is a big counterrevolutionary, a big hidden traitor, a big renegade and a big enemy agent." She declared: "He deserves a thousand cuts, ten thousand slashes." After listening to the recording, Jiang leaned into the courtroom microphones and admitted that the voice was hers, but added, "I can't make it out clearly. There's nothing important in it. I only know that it's my voice."

China's press trumpeted that this was an admission of guilt, as were some other things she said in court. She did, for example, identify her handwriting on letters ordering the arrests of associates of Liu Shaoqi. Still, the televised testimony showed her answering most of the specific questions put to her with a curtly uncooperative "I don't remember."

One of the witnesses against her was Xiao Meng, head of an investigating team that Jiang assigned to collect incriminating evidence against Liu's wife Wang Guangmei. Dissatisfied with Xiao's initial report that Wang was an American spy Jiang not only threw him into jail for five years but ordered up a second report charging that Wang was at once an agent for the U.S., Japan and Taiwan.

An intriguing glimpse into Jiang's character was provided by former General Jiang Tengjiao, one of five military officers on trial with the Gang, on separate charges of plotting to assassinate Mao The former general confessed that Jiang sent him to Shanghai to ransack the homes of her former friends. His mission according to the Chinese press, was to seek out and destroy letters, pictures and diaries that might contain embarrassing information about Madame Mao's early career as an actress in grade-B movies.

In exposing crimes committed by Jiang Qing and her gang during the Cultural Revolution, the court is dealing with a period of history that has painful memories for China. Directly or indirectly 100 million people are now said to have suffered during that terrible time. Before the trial began, there was speculation that Jiang Qmg would defend herself by claiming that Mao had ordered or approved her actions. If she did use that argument last week, it was carefully edited out of the portions of the trial shown daily on television. Indeed, the only hint of Mao's involvement was the charge, made in the official press, that Jiang in her testimony had made denials and tried to shift the responsibility to others both lower and higher than she." Whether or not that was an oblique reference to Mao, every Chinese knows that Liu Shaoqi and others were disgraced during the Cultural Revolution because the Great Helmsman wanted things that way.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.