He was imprisoned by the KMT government for supporting the student protest movement,[5]: 173  spending time at the Xifeng concentration camp.

[5]: 173  In 1949, at the request of Zhou Enlai, he served as a nonpartisan delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Having examined trends of the early 1950s, he concluded that further population growth at such high rates would be detrimental to China's development.

[9] The charges of the government were that the theory followed Malthusianism, attempted to discredit the superiority of socialism, and showed contempt for the people.

On July 26 of the same year, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party formally apologized to him, stating that events had validated his theory.

This view can be demonstrated by the title of a newspaper article published in 1979: "Erroneously criticized one person, population mistakenly increased 300,000,000".

[14] Nationally, the scholar is featured prominently in primary and middle school textbooks as "Uncle Ma", where he is praised for his contributions to population control and environmental protection.