Nien Cheng or Zheng Nian (January 28, 1915 – November 2, 2009) was the pen name of Yao Nien-Yuan[1] (Chinese: 姚念媛; pinyin: Yáo Niànyuán).
After the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, Kang-chi Cheng served at Shell's office in Shanghai until his death from cancer in 1957.
[7] In 1966, Cheng was targeted by the Red Guards and accused of being a British spy, as she was both Western-educated and the widow of a former manager of a foreign firm in Shanghai.
In 1973, when offered parole on the basis that her attitude had shown improvement, Cheng resisted leaving the detention house without first receiving official acknowledgment from her captors that she had been unjustly detained.
After Cheng conducted a discreet investigation, she found that this scenario was impossible, and she came to believe that Meiping had been murdered by Maoists after she refused to denounce her mother.
The alleged killer of Meiping, a rebel worker named Hu Yongnian, was arrested and given a suspended death sentence by Shanghai authorities in 1980, but he was eventually paroled in 1995.
She stated that the main reason she remained in her self-imposed exile was that she could not bear the constant reminder of her dead daughter at the sight of other young Chinese women.