In 1988, Peng Peiyun was assigned to China's State Family Planning Commission. Her job was to implement the relatively new one-child policy. The Communist Party was sure that it knew how many people should be in the Chinese population to prevent famine and overcrowding—so sure, in fact, that it was willing to require abortions and sterilization under threat of violence. It was willing to remove "illegal children" from their homes and deny their families access to work, education, and medical care.
After Peng's recent death, official state media dutifully called her "an outstanding leader" for her work on women and children. But on Chinese social platforms, many people responded with anger: "Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there" in the afterlife, read one Weibo post translated by The Times of India.
