Editing Famine (section)

====China====
{{see also|List of famines in China|Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879|Chinese famine of 1928–1930|Chinese famine of 1942–1943}}
[[File:Engraving-FamineRelief-China.gif|thumb|right|[[China|Chinese]] officials engaged in famine relief, 19th-century engraving]]
Chinese scholars had kept count of 1,828 instances of famine from 108&nbsp;BCE to 1911 in one province or another—an average of more than one famine per year.<ref>Walter H. Mallory, ''China: Land of famine'' (1926) p.1</ref> A major famine from 1333 to 1337 killed 6 million. The four famines of 1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 are said to have killed no fewer than 45 million people.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Polit/Famines.html|title=FAEC&nbsp;— FEARFUL FAMINES OF THE PAST|website=Mitosyfraudes.org|access-date=1 February 2016|archive-date=15 April 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110415072104/http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Polit/Famines.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Carol H. Shiue, "The political economy of famine relief in China, 1740–1820." ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History'' 36.1 (2005): 33–55. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236806289_The_Political_Economy_of_Famine_Relief_in_China_1740-1820/link/55e55c3308ae6abe6e9047eb/download online]</ref>

China's [[Qing dynasty]] bureaucracy devoted extensive attention to minimizing famines with a network of [[granary|granaries]]. Its famines generally occurred immediately after [[ENSO|El Niño-Southern Oscillation]]-linked droughts and floods. These events are comparable, though somewhat smaller in scale, to the ecological trigger events of China's vast 19th-century famines.<ref>Pierre-Etienne Will, ''Bureaucracy and Famine''</ref> Qing China carried out its relief efforts, which included vast shipments of food, a requirement that the rich open their storehouses to the poor, and price regulation, as part of a state guarantee of subsistence to the peasantry (known as ''ming-sheng''). However the [[Taiping Rebellion]] of the 1850s disrupted the granary relief system such that 1850 to 1873 saw the population of China drop by over 30 million people from early deaths and missing births.<ref>{{Cite web | author=Richard Hooker | date=14 July 1999 | title=Ch'ing China: The Taiping Rebellion | url=http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/TAIPING.HTM | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414025909/http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/TAIPING.HTM | archive-date=14 April 2011}}</ref>

When a stressed monarchy shifted from state management and direct shipments of grain to monetary charity in the mid-19th century, the system broke down. Thus the 1867–68 famine under the [[Tongzhi Restoration]] was successfully relieved but the [[Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879|Great North China Famine]] of 1877–78, caused by drought across northern China, was a catastrophe. The province of [[Shanxi]] was substantially depopulated as grains ran out, and desperately starving people stripped forests, fields, and their very houses for food. Estimated mortality is 9.5 to 13 million people.<ref>[http://www.fao.org/docrep/U8480E/U8480E05.htm Dimensions of need&nbsp;– People and populations at risk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010151615/http://www.fao.org/docrep/U8480E/U8480E05.htm |date=10 October 2017 }}. ''Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations'' (FAO).</ref>

=====Great Leap Forward 1958–1961=====
The largest famine of the 20th century was [[Great Chinese Famine|the 1958–1961 famine]] associated with the [[Great Leap Forward]] in China. The immediate causes of this famine lay in Mao Zedong's ill-fated attempt to transform China from an agricultural nation to an industrial power in one huge leap. Communist Party cadres across China insisted that peasants abandon their farms for collective farms, and begin to produce steel in small foundries, often melting down their farm instruments in the process. Collectivisation undermined incentives for the investment of labor and resources in agriculture; unrealistic plans for decentralized metal production sapped needed labor; unfavorable weather conditions; and communal dining halls encouraged [[overconsumption]] of available food.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chang |first1=Gene Hsin |last2=Wen |first2=Guanzhong James |title=Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961 |journal=Economic Development and Cultural Change |date=October 1997 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=1–34 |doi=10.1086/452319 |s2cid=154835645 }}</ref> Such was the centralized control of information and the intense pressure on party cadres to report only good news—such as [[production quota]]s met or exceeded—that information about the escalating disaster was effectively suppressed. When the leadership did become aware of the scale of the famine, it did little to respond, and continued to ban any discussion of the cataclysm. This blanket suppression of news was so effective that very few Chinese citizens were aware of the scale of the famine, and the greatest peacetime demographic disaster of the 20th century only became widely known twenty years later, when the veil of censorship began to lift.

The exact number of famine deaths during 1958–1961 is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 18 million<ref name=grada9>{{Cite web |last=Gráda |first=Cormac Ó |date=January 2011 |title=Great Leap into Famine |website=ResearchGate |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239810580 |page=9}}</ref> to at least 42 million<ref name=dikotterxii>Dikötter, Frank. ''Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62''. Walker & Company, 2010. p. xii. {{ISBN|0-8027-7768-6}}.</ref> people, with a further 30 million cancelled or delayed births.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smil |first1=V. |title=China's great famine: 40 years later |journal=British Medical Journal |date=18 December 1999 |volume=319 |issue=7225 |pages=1619–1621 |doi=10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1619 |pmid=10600969 |pmc=1127087 }}</ref> It was only when the famine had wrought its worst that Mao reversed agricultural collectivisation policies, which were effectively dismantled in 1978. China has not experienced a famine of the proportions of the Great Leap Forward since 1961.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woo |first1=Meredith Jung-En |author-link1=Meredith Jung-En Woo |title=Neoliberalism and Institutional Reform in East Asia: A Comparative Study |date=2007 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-59034-2 }}{{page needed|date=April 2019}}</ref>