Jiang Qing began in theatre and film, working in Shanghai during the 1930s under the stage name Lan Ping. She joined left-wing cultural circles before moving to the Communist base at Yan'an in 1937. Her marriage to Mao Zedong in 1938 placed her close to the party's leadership, but for many years she occupied a restricted public position. Her influence developed through cultural policy as well as access to Mao.

During the early 1960s she attacked established theatrical works and promoted performances that presented workers, peasants and soldiers as revolutionary heroes. The model operas and ballets associated with her combined traditional forms with new political content and came to dominate officially approved performance during the Cultural Revolution. She shaped repertories, staging and artists' careers, linking aesthetics to accusations of political disloyalty.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Jiang became a leading member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. She addressed Red Guards, backed attacks on party and cultural officials, and used her position to pursue political opponents. Elected to the Politburo in 1969, she remained a radical during struggles over policy and succession. With Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, she formed the faction later widely known as the Gang of Four. Their power depended on Mao and control of propaganda.

After Mao died in September 1976, Hua Guofeng and allied leaders arrested the four in October. At the trial of 1980–81, Jiang defended herself by insisting that she had carried out Mao's policies rather than independently directing the entire movement. She received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, later commuted to life imprisonment. She died by suicide in 1991. Her prosecution formed part of the party's effort to condemn the Cultural Revolution while preserving Mao's central place in official history, a framework that complicates assessments of individual and collective responsibility.