Ma Yinchu

People’s Republic of China state institutions Marxism–Leninism 1882–1982 ○ Natural causes

Economist whose New Population Theory called for population control and cost him the presidency of Peking University

Born to a distiller’s family in Sheng county, Zhejiang, he studied mining at Beiyang University, went on to Yale and took a doctorate in economics at Columbia in 1914. He taught at Peking University from 1916, founded the Chinese Economics Society and sat on the Nationalist government’s economic and finance committees, but was imprisoned in a camp for criticising Chiang Kai-shek’s government. In 1949, at Zhou Enlai’s request, he sat in the CPPCC as a non-party delegate, and after heading Zhejiang University he became president of Peking University in 1951. In June 1957 he presented his “New Population Theory” to the NPC, arguing that the state should control fertility; over the next three years it was attacked as Malthusian, and he was removed as president in 1960. In 1979 the Central Committee formally apologised and made him honorary president of Peking University.

Also known as: Ma Yin-ch'u