Shanghai Orphans (Traditional Chinese: 上海孤兒;Simplified Chinese：上海孤儿； pinyin: Shàng hǎi gū ér; officially romanized to State‘s children【國家的孩子】) refers to The People's Republic of China during the Great Chinese Famine, when around 3000 Shanghai orphans were transferred to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
During the Great Leap Forward, they set up People's commune and communal kitchens. Then famine struck. The poor were unable to feed themselves. Their children had no chance of survival at home. But there was nowhere to send a child already half-dead from starvation. Their only hope was to leave them where people with food might notice and take them in.The whole country was suffering from famine. Everyone was hungry. The people who abandoned their children this way hoped that their kids would be fed.
The chairman of All-China Women's Federation Kang Keqing asked Ulanhu the first Secretary of the CPC Inner Mongolia Committee and chairman of Inner Mongolia, whether (or not) the Inner Mongolia could possibly get some of the grasslands to donate milk powder. After Ulanhu made a discussion with the prime minister Zhou Enlai, he made a more significant decision: to receive all the orphans from Shanghai,The Shanghai orphans in Inner Mongolia were called 'the State's children'.Ulanhu's own daughter was one of those who participated in this work.
All the orphans not only have their primary source documents which have accumulated over the course of an original lifetime in Shanghai, but also built new documents after transferred to their herdsmen foster parents in Xilin Gol League,Inner Mongolia. Unfortunately, these valuable records were all destroyed in the "Cultural Revolution" .