Ai Qing

Ai Qing (1910–1996), born Jiang Haicheng in Jinhua, Zhejiang, was one of the most important poets of modern China. He enrolled at the National Hangzhou Academy of Art in 1928 to study painting, then went to Paris in 1929 to continue studying painting and sculpture, where he was widely exposed to European modernist poetry.

After returning to China in 1932 he joined the League of Left-Wing Artists and was arrested the same year by the Nationalist government for participating in left-wing activities, serving three years in prison. There he wrote his landmark poem "Dayanhe — My Wet Nurse," published in 1934, which established his standing in modern Chinese poetry. He went on to publish the collections The North, Toward the Sun, The Torch, and Announcement of Dawn, becoming one of the most influential poets of the war years.

He went to Yan'an in 1941 after the New Fourth Army Incident. During the 1942 Yan'an Rectification Movement he came under investigation after writing the essay "Understand and Respect Writers," which argued for respecting writers' creative individuality; he was cleared only after Mao Zedong's correction of the movement's excesses and Zhou Enlai's personal intervention, and was formally admitted to the Chinese Communist Party in the late summer of 1943.

During the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign, Ding Ling telephoned Ai Qing asking him to speak on her behalf at a criticism session; his remarks implicated him in turn. The Chinese Writers Association's party group expanded the 1955 case against the "Ding Ling–Chen Qixia anti-party clique" into the "Ding Ling, Feng Xuefeng, Chen Qixia rightist anti-party clique," grouping in Ai Qing alongside his Yan'an-era associates Li Youran, Luo Feng, Bai Lang, and Ding Ling's husband Chen Ming. People's Daily published an article denouncing his conduct. The Writers Association's party group passed a resolution in December 1957, the Party Central Committee approved it in January 1958, and the Central Organization Department issued formal notice in February 1958 expelling him from the Party and stripping all his posts.

In April 1958 Ai Qing left the literary world for a state forest farm in Heilongjiang; in 1959 he was transferred to Xinjiang, reaching the Shihezi reclamation area of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps' Eighth Division in August 1960. During the Cultural Revolution he was denounced and had his home ransacked as a "major rightist" once shielded by "capitalist roaders"; in May 1967 his entire family was driven to a reclamation settlement on the edge of the desert to live in a dugout dwelling. General Wang Zhen, who had previously protected him, was himself labeled a "three-anti element" and could no longer shield him. For the following five years Ai Qing lived under strict control in Regiment 144, Shawan County, Eighth Division, labor that left his right eye nearly blind. Following inquiries from foreign visitors including Edgar Snow, he was declared "liberated" in November 1972 and moved to Shihezi's new urban district; in May 1975 he was permitted to return to Beijing for medical treatment.

On February 1, 1979, the Chinese Writers Association's party group issued its "Review Conclusion on Comrade Ai Qing's 'Rightist' Case," ruling that the original designation had been a pure misjudgment, and restored his party membership, former rank, and a work assignment. His creative output revived after rehabilitation, and he published the collection Songs of Return in 1980. In 1985 French President François Mitterrand made him a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died in Beijing in 1996 and is regarded as one of the most important Chinese poets of the 20th century. His son Ai Weiwei went on to become an internationally prominent contemporary artist and social activist, and has often spoken of his childhood years in exile with his father in Xinjiang.