Jialing Zhang was born in China and moved to the United States after graduating from high school. She studied journalism and documentary film at New York University. She then worked in Beijing as a correspondent for various international media outlets. Her first feature-length documentary, "Complicit" (CN/US/HK 2017, co-directed with Heather White), a portrait of a Chinese migrant worker poisoned by benzene who takes on the global electronics industry, premiered at the 2017 Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin.   

A major success was the documentary "One Child Nation" (US 2019, co-directed with Nanfu Wang), about the consequences of China's experiment with a rigid "one-child" policy. The film received excellent reviews and won several international awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. Zhang and Wang were nominated in the documentary directing category at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards.   

As a producer, Zhang was involved in Nanfu Wang's "In The Same Breath" (US) in 2021, which followed the outbreak and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The film also won awards at various international festivals and earned Zhang and her co-producers a Producers Guild of America nomination.   

Jialing Zhang's first documentary directed on her own was the German-Dutch co-production "Total Trust" (2023), about the all-encompassing surveillance apparatus in China and the individual people who defend themselves against it. After several international festival screenings, "Total Trust" opened in German cinemas in October 2023.   

Jialing Zhang lives in the USA.