Chinese Official Denies Mao’s Widow Has Cancer
A government official Wednesday denied a report in a provincial newspaper this week that the imprisoned widow of Mao Tse-tung is seriously ill.
“The story that Jiang Qing has contracted throat cancer and she is in critical condition is unfounded,” said Wang Jingrong, spokesman for the Public Security Ministry. “She is still serving her term and is in normal health, although owing to old age she is weak.”
Jiang, 72, has been blamed by Peking for many of the leftist excesses of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Jiang, Mao’s fourth wife, was arrested in 1976, a month after Mao’s death, as the ringleader of the infamous Gang of Four and convicted of trying to overthrow the government.
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