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. Cheng lived in China until 1980. Using funds that her husband had placed in overseas bank accounts, she first emigrated to Canada and later to Washington, D.C., where she wrote the autobiography. Cheng never returned to China. 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. Meanwhile, Cheng also suspected that she was still a constant target of surveillance by the Chinese government. In an interview conducted in 1998, Cheng said she would never return to China until the portrait of Chairman Mao was removed from the gate of Tiananmen Square. Cheng was a longtime friend of U.S. Ambassador to China Nelson T. Johnson and his wife Jane Augusta Washington Thornton Beck Johnson. After moving to Washington, D.C., Cheng traveled extensively and was a frequent speaker on the lecture circuit. She was also a close friend of Baroness Van Aerssen (Suzanne Hiltermann-Souloumiac), wife of the Dutch Consul General in Hong Kong. Nien and Suzanne exchanged several letters on Life and Death in Shanghai. Canadian singer Corey Hart recorded an instrumental song based on her memoir in his 1990 album Bang! Cheng died of renal failure in Washington, D.C. on November 2, 2009. References 1915 births 2009 deaths Shell plc people American writers of Chinese descent Victims of human rights abuses Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China Chinese prisoners and detainees Chinese emigrants to the United States Victims of the Cultural Revolution