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97-476: The Great Chinese Famine ( Chinese : 三年大饥荒 ; lit. 'three years of great famine') was a famine that occurred between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962. It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in

194-457: A bench concealed beneath the plants, and the "field" was again entirely composed of individually transplanted stalks. In response to learning about the famine, the government of Taiwan delivered food aid via parachute drops. In April and May 1961, Liu Shaoqi , then President of the People's Republic of China , concluded after 44 days of field research in villages of Hunan that the causes of

291-443: A component—either a character or a sub-component called a radical —usually involves either a reduction in its total number of strokes , or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example, the ⼓   ' WRAP ' radical used in the traditional character 沒 is simplified to ⼏   ' TABLE ' to form the simplified character 没 . By systematically simplifying radicals, large swaths of

388-434: A conversion table. While exercising such derivation, the following rules should be observed: Sample Derivations : The Series One List of Variant Characters reduces the number of total standard characters. First, amongst each set of variant characters sharing identical pronunciation and meaning, one character (usually the simplest in form) is elevated to the standard character set, and the rest are made obsolete. Then amongst

485-467: A discussion with Field Marshal Montgomery in Autumn 1961, that "unnatural deaths" exceeded 5 million in 1960–1961, according to a declassified CIA report. Due to the lack of food and incentive to marry at that time, according to China's official statistics, China's population in 1961 was about 658,590,000, some 14,580,000 lower than in 1959. The birth rate decreased from 2.922% (1958) to 2.086% (1960) and

582-522: A family to eat, espousing the belief that the Great Leap Forward should not be implemented, or merely not working hard enough were all seen as forms of "conservative rightism". Peasants became unable to speak openly on collectivization and state grain purchase. With a culture of fear and recrimination at both a local and official level, speaking and acting against the famine became a seemingly impossible task. The influence of local government in

679-407: A few revised forms, and was implemented for official use by China's State Council on 5 June 2013. In Chinese, simplified characters are referred to by their official name 简化字 ; jiǎnhuàzì , or colloquially as 简体字 ; jiǎntǐzì . The latter term refers broadly to all character variants featuring simplifications of character form or structure, a practice which has always been present as

776-467: A field prepared especially for Mao, which appeared to be a bumper crop. The local officials became trapped by these sham demonstrations to Mao, and exhorted the peasants to reach unattainable goals, by "deep ploughing and close planting", among other techniques. This ended up making things much worse; the crop failed completely, leaving barren fields. No one was in a position to challenge Mao's ideas as incorrect, so peasants went to extreme lengths to keep up

873-610: A newly coined phono-semantic compound : Removing radicals Only retaining single radicals Replacing with ancient forms or variants : Adopting ancient vulgar variants : Readopting abandoned phonetic-loan characters : Copying and modifying another traditional character : Based on 132 characters and 14 components listed in Chart 2 of the Complete List , the 1,753 derived characters found in Chart 3 can be created by systematically simplifying components using Chart 2 as

970-522: A non-government archive of meteorological data from 350 weather stations across China, and the droughts, floods, and temperatures during 1958–1961 were within the typical patterns for China. According to Basil Ashton: Many foreign observers felt that these reports of weather-related crop failures were designed to cover up political factors that had led to poor agricultural performance. They also suspected that local officials tended to exaggerate such reports to obtain more state assistance or tax relief. Clearly,

1067-573: A part of the Chinese writing system. The official name tends to refer to the specific, systematic set published by the Chinese government, which includes not only simplifications of individual characters, but also a substantial reduction in the total number of characters through the merger of formerly distinct forms. According to Chinese palaeographer Qiu Xigui , the broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape ( 字形 ; zìxíng ),

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1164-506: A party secretary and deputy-governor of the province, heard rumours of a famine breaking out in Anhui and disagreed with many of Zeng's policies. Zeng reported Zhang to Mao for such speculations. As a result, Mao labeled Zhang "a member of the 'Peng Dehuai anti-Party military clique ' " and he was purged from the local party. Zeng was unable to report on the famine when it became an emergency situation, as this would prove his hypocrisy. For this he

1261-410: A result of the famine. To survive, people had to resort to every possible means, from eating soil and poisons to stealing and killing and even to eating human flesh. Yang Jisheng, a retired Chinese reporter, said "Parents ate their own kids. Kids ate their own parents. And we couldn't have imagined there was still grain in the warehouses. At the worst time, the government was still exporting grain." Due to

1358-442: A result, year-over-year grain production fell dramatically. The harvest was down by 15% in 1959 compared to 1958, and by 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level. Specifically, according to China's governmental data, crop production decreased from 200 million tons (or 400 billion jin ) in 1958 to 170 million tons (or 340 billion jin) in 1959, and to 143.5 million tons (or 287 billion jin) in 1960. The excess mortality associated with

1455-640: A series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters". During the " Boluan Fanzheng " period in June 1981, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially changed the name to "Three Years of Difficulty", and stated that the famine was mainly due to the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward as well as the Anti-Rightist Campaign , in addition to some natural disasters and

1552-440: Is actually more complex than eliminated ones. An example is the character 搾 which is eliminated in favor of the variant form 榨 . The 扌   'HAND' with three strokes on the left of the eliminated 搾 is now seen as more complex, appearing as the ⽊   'TREE' radical 木 , with four strokes, in the chosen variant 榨 . Not all characters standardised in the simplified set consist of fewer strokes. For instance,

1649-454: Is derived. Merging homophonous characters: Adapting cursive shapes ( 草書楷化 ): Replacing a component with a simple arbitrary symbol (such as 又 and 乂 ): Omitting entire components : Omitting components, then applying further alterations : Structural changes that preserve the basic shape Replacing the phonetic component of phono-semantic compounds : Replacing an uncommon phonetic component : Replacing entirely with

1746-813: Is now discouraged. A State Language Commission official cited "oversimplification" as the reason for restoring some characters. The language authority declared an open comment period until 31 August 2009, for feedback from the public. In 2013, the List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters was published as a revision of the 1988 lists; it included a total of 8105 characters. It included 45 newly recognized standard characters that were previously considered variant forms, as well as official approval of 226 characters that had been simplified by analogy and had seen wide use but were not explicitly given in previous lists or documents. Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification , eventually arriving at

1843-623: Is referred to as the " big seal script ". The traditional narrative, as also attested in the Shuowen Jiezi dictionary ( c.  100 AD ), is that the Qin small seal script that would later be imposed across China was originally derived from the Zhou big seal script with few modifications. However, the body of epigraphic evidence comparing the character forms used by scribes gives no indication of any real consolidation in character forms prior to

1940-587: Is that excessive eating took place in the mess halls, and that this directly led to a worsening of the famine. If excessive eating had not taken place, one scholar argued, "the worst of the Great Leap Famine could still have been avoided in mid-1959". However, dire hunger did not set in to places like Da Fo village until 1960, and the public dining hall participation rate was found not to be a meaningful cause of famine in Anhui and Jiangxi . In Da Fo village, "food output did not decline in reality, but there

2037-547: Is used instead of 叠 in regions using traditional characters. The Chinese government stated that it wished to keep Chinese orthography stable. The Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese was published in 1988 and included 7000 simplified and unsimplified characters. Of these, half were also included in the revised List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese , which specified 2500 common characters and 1000 less common characters. In 2009,

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2134-618: The Chinese language , with the other being traditional characters . Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China and Singapore , while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan . Simplification of

2231-573: The Red Flag Canal , made positive contributions to irrigation, but researchers have pointed out that the massive hydraulic construction project led to many deaths due to starvation, epidemics, and drowning, which contributed to the famine. However, there have been disagreements on the significance of the drought and floods in causing the Great Famine. According to published data from Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences ( 中国气象科学研究院 ),

2328-620: The Sino-Soviet split . Academic studies on the Great Chinese Famine also became more active in mainland China after 1980, when the government started to release some demographic data to the public. A number of high-ranking Chinese officials had expressed their views on the famine: Researchers outside China have argued that the massive institutional and policy changes which accompanied the Great Leap Forward were

2425-465: The "Dot" stroke : The traditional components ⺥ and 爫 become ⺈ : The traditional component 奐 becomes 奂 : Luoshan The Western Han dynasty began to set up Jixian County, belonging to Jiangxia County. The Wei and Jin dynasties use the Chinese system. The Southern Song dynasty is divided into the county of Baocheng County, which belongs to Yiyang County. Nanqi was changed to Baocheng as Baocheng, which belongs to Beiyiyang County. In

2522-459: The "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form ( 字体 ; 字體 ; zìtǐ ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes". The initiatives following the founding of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) to universalize the use of their small seal script across

2619-482: The 1986 General List of Simplified Chinese Characters , hereafter the General List . All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Chart 1 and Chart 2 in the 1986 Complete List . Characters in both charts are structurally simplified based on similar set of principles. They are separated into two charts to clearly mark those in Chart 2 as 'usable as simplified character components', based on which Chart 3

2716-520: The 1986 mainland China revisions. Unlike in mainland China, Singapore parents have the option of registering their children's names in traditional characters. Malaysia also promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, though completely identical to the mainland Chinese set. They are used in Chinese-language schools. All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Charts 1 and 2 of

2813-468: The 20th year of Yuanzhiyuan (1283), Xinyang Prefecture was reorganized in Luoshan County. The former Luoshan County moved to the southwest, and it was called Luoshan New County. It belonged to Xinyang Prefecture of Suining. In the first year of Ming Hongwu (1368), the county was restored to the old, still known as Luoshan County, belonging to Xinyang Prefecture. In the 7th year of Hongwu (1374), it

2910-470: The Chinese government published a major revision to the list which included a total of 8300 characters. No new simplifications were introduced. In addition, slight modifications to the orthography of 44 characters to fit traditional calligraphic rules were initially proposed, but were not implemented due to negative public response. Also, the practice of unrestricted simplification of rare and archaic characters by analogy using simplified radicals or components

3007-664: The Famine was due to government policies while the rest (31%) was due to natural disasters. Local party leaders, for their part, conspired to cover up shortfalls and reassign blame in order to protect their own lives and positions. Mao was kept unaware of some of the starvation of villagers in the rural areas who were suffering, as the birth rate began to plummet and deaths increased in 1958 and 1959. In 1960, as gestures of solidarity, Mao ate no meat for seven months and Zhou Enlai cut his monthly grain consumption. In visits to Henan province in 1958, Mao observed what local officials claimed

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3104-494: The Great Leap Forward as well as the famine forced Mao Zedong to withdraw from active decision-making within the CCP and the central government, and turn various future responsibilities over to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping . A series of economic reforms were carried out by Liu and Deng and others, including policies such as sanzi yibao (三自一包) which allowed free market and household responsibility for agricultural production. However,

3201-429: The Great Leap Forward. During the Great Leap Forward, farming was organized into people's communes and the cultivation of individual plots was forbidden. Previously farmers cultivated plots of land given to them by the government. The Great Leap Forward led to the agricultural economy being increasingly centrally planned. Regional Party leaders were given production quotas for the communes under their control. Their output

3298-685: The Northern Wei dynasty, Baocheng County, Qi County, and Dongsui County were placed. Baocheng County and Qi County belong to Qi'an County. North Qihe County is located in Gao'an County, still in Qi'an County. In the third year of the Kaihuang Emperor (583 years), Gao'an County was merged into Zhongshan County. In the 16th year of Kaihuang (596), it was analyzed that Zhongshan County was located in Luoshan County and belonged to Yiyang County. Because of

3395-544: The Party believed that they had an excess of grain. On the contrary, the crop yields were lower than average. For instance, Beijing believed that "in 1960 state granaries would have 50 billion jin of grain", when they actually contained 12.7 billion jin. The effects of the illusion of superabundance were significant, leaving some historians to argue that it was the major cause of much of the starvation throughout China. Yang Dali argued that there were three main consequences from

3492-593: The Yellow River which affected part of Henan Province and Shandong Province . It was reported as the most severe flood of the Yellow River since 1933. In July 1958, the Yellow River flood affected 741,000 people in 1708 villages and inundated over 3.04 million mu (over half a million acres ) of cultivated fields. The largest torrent of the flood was smoothly directed into the Bohai Sea on 27 July, and

3589-428: The character set are altered. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms that embody graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. In addition, variant characters with identical pronunciation and meaning were reduced to a single standardized character, usually the simplest among all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between

3686-542: The charade; some grew seedlings in their bedding and coats and, after the seedlings quickly sprouted, "planted" them in fields—the bedding made the plants look high and healthy. The post office in Xinyang confiscated 1,200 outgoing letters begging for help. Yang Jisheng, a retired Chinese reporter, said: When the Guangshan County post office discovered an anonymous letter to Beijing disclosing starvation deaths,

3783-407: The chosen variants, those that appear in the "Complete List of Simplified Characters" are also simplified in character structure accordingly. Some examples follow: Sample reduction of equivalent variants : Ancient variants with simple structure are preferred : Simpler vulgar forms are also chosen : The chosen variant was already simplified in Chart 1 : In some instances, the chosen variant

3880-473: The country's writing system as a serious impediment to its modernization. In 1916, a multi-part English-language article entitled "The Problem of the Chinese Language" co-authored by the Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982) and poet Hu Shih (1891–1962) has been identified as a turning point in the history of the Chinese script—as it was one of the first clear calls for China to move away from

3977-470: The death rate increased from 1.198% (1958) to 2.543% (1960), while the average numbers for 1962–1965 are about 4% and 1%, respectively. The mortality in the birth and death rates both peaked in 1961 and began recovering rapidly after that, as shown on the chart of census data displayed here. Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter based in Xinyang , explained to Yang Jisheng why he never reported on his experience: In

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4074-572: The disagreement between Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping over economic and social policy grew larger. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement and in 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution , during which Liu was accused of being a traitor and enemy agent for attributing only 30% to natural calamities. Liu was beaten and denied medicine for diabetes and pneumonia ; he died in 1969. Deng

4171-631: The drought in 1960 was not uncommon and its severity was only considered "mild" compared to that in other years—it was less serious than those in 1955, 1963, 1965–1967, and so on. Moreover, Yang Jisheng, a senior journalist from Xinhua News Agency , reports that Xue Muqiao , then head of the National Statistics Bureau of China , said in 1958, "We give whatever figures the upper-level wants" to overstate natural disasters and relieve official responsibility for deaths due to starvation. Yang claimed that he investigated other sources including

4268-476: The early 20th century. In 1909, the educator and linguist Lufei Kui formally proposed the use of simplified characters in education for the first time. Over the following years—marked by the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty , followed by growing social and political discontent that further erupted into the 1919 May Fourth Movement —many anti-imperialist intellectuals throughout China began to see

4365-462: The famine can be seen in the comparison between the provinces of Anhui and Jiangxi. Anhui, having a radical pro-Mao government, was led by Zeng Xisheng who was "dictatorial", with ties to Mao. Zeng firmly believed in the Great Leap Forward and tried to build relationships with higher officials rather than maintain local ties. Zeng proposed agricultural projects without consulting colleagues, which caused Anhui's agriculture to fail terribly. Zhang Kaifan,

4462-496: The famine has been estimated by former CCP officials and international experts, with most giving a number in the range of 15–55 million deaths. The Maoist author Gao Mobo claims that anti-communist writers prefer to stretch the death toll number as high as possible while those sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Revolution prefer to see the number as low as possible. Mao Zedong himself suggested, in

4559-515: The famine than did higher rungs of government. As the Great Leap Forward progressed, many provincial leaders began aligning themselves with Mao and higher Party leaders. Local leaders were forced to choose between doing what was best for their community and guarding their reputation politically. Landlords began "denouncing any opposition as 'conservative rightism ' ", which is defined broadly as anything anti-communist. In an environment of conspiracy theories directed against peasants, saving extra grain for

4656-471: The famine that have been used by the Chinese government. Initially, the usual name was "Three Years of Natural Disasters" ( 三年自然灾害 ). In June 1981, this was changed to "Three Years of Difficulty" ( 三年困难时期 ), thus no longer blaming nature alone for the famine. Policy changes affecting how farming was organized coincided with droughts and floods. Weather had been relatively mild for much of the 1950s, but became particularly bad by 1959, driving down crop yields. As

4753-525: The famine to natural disasters and 70% to man-made errors ("三分天灾, 七分人祸"). After the launch of Reforms and Opening Up , the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially stated in June 1981 that the famine was mainly due to the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward as well as the Anti-Rightist Campaign , in addition to some natural disasters and the Sino-Soviet split . Aside from the "Three Years of Great Famine" ( 三年大饥荒 ), there are two names for

4850-514: The famine were 30% natural disaster and 70% human error (三分天灾, 七分人祸). In January and February 1962, the " 7000 Cadres Conference " took place in Beijing , which was attended by more than 7,000 CCP officials nationwide. During the conference, Liu formally announced his conclusion on the causes of the great famine, while the Great Leap Forward was declared "over" by the Chinese Communist Party. The policies of Mao Zedong were criticized. The failure of

4947-463: The famine were not due to unusual weather, but to massive, poorly planned and poorly executed irrigation works which were part of the Great Leap Forward. At this time, encouraged by Mao Zedong, people in China were building a large number of dams and thousands of kilometers of new irrigation canals in an attempt to move water from wet areas to areas that were experiencing drought. Some of the works, such as

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5044-634: The first official list of simplified forms was published, consisting of 324 characters collated by Peking University professor Qian Xuantong . However, fierce opposition within the KMT resulted in the list being rescinded in 1936. Work throughout the 1950s resulted in the 1956 promulgation of the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme , a draft of 515 simplified characters and 54 simplified components, whose simplifications would be present in most compound characters. Over

5141-463: The first round—but was massively unpopular and never saw consistent use. The second round of simplifications was ultimately retracted officially in 1986, well after they had largely ceased to be used due to their unpopularity and the confusion they caused. In August 2009, China began collecting public comments for a revised list of simplified characters; the resulting List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, including

5238-475: The following decade, the Script Reform Committee deliberated on characters in the 1956 scheme, collecting public input regarding the recognizability of variants, and often approving forms in small batches. Parallel to simplification, there were also initiatives aimed at eliminating the use of characters entirely and replacing them with pinyin as an official Chinese alphabet, but this possibility

5335-406: The founding of the Qin. The Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) that inherited the Qin administration coincided with the perfection of clerical script through the process of libian . Eastward spread of Western learning Though most closely associated with the People's Republic, the idea of a mass simplification of character forms first gained traction in China during

5432-476: The government declared a "victory over the flood" after sending a rescue team of over 2 million people. The spokesperson of the Flood Prevention Center of Chinese government stated on 27 July 1958, that: This year we defeated the large flood without division of torrents or breaks on dams, which secures the big harvest of the crops. This is yet another miracle created by the Chinese people. But

5529-414: The government was encouraged to report success and hide failures. Because the 2 million farm laborers from the two provinces were ordered away from the fields to serve as a rescue team and were repairing the banks of the river instead of tending to their fields, "crops are neglected and much of the harvest is left to rot in the fields". In contrast, historian Frank Dikötter has argued that most floods during

5626-433: The granaries of Henan and Hebei had been opened, no one need have died. As people were dying in large numbers around them, officials did not think to save them. Their only concern was how to fulfill the delivery of grain. The degree to which people's communes lessened or worsened the famine is controversial. Each region dealt with the famine differently, and timelines of the famine are not uniform across China. One argument

5723-419: The illusion of superabundance made the adoption of the commune mess halls seem rational at the time. All these changes, of course, contributed to the rapid exhaustion of grain supplies. Iron and steel production was identified as a key requirement for economic advancement, and millions of peasants were ordered away from agricultural work to join the iron and steel production workforce. Much of the iron produced by

5820-470: The illusion of superabundance: First, it led to planners to shift lands from grain to economic crops, such as cotton, sugarcane, and beets, and divert huge numbers of agricultural laborers into industrial sectors, fueling state demand for procured grain from the countryside. Second, it prompted the Chinese leadership, especially Zhou Enlai , to speed up grain exports to secure more foreign currency to purchase capital goods needed for industrialization. Finally,

5917-466: The increased usage of 朙 was followed by proliferation of a third variant: 眀 , with 目 'eye' on the left—likely derived as a contraction of 朙 . Ultimately, 明 became the character's standard form. The Book of Han (111 AD) describes an earlier attempt made by King Xuan of Zhou ( d.  782 BC ) to unify character forms across the states of ancient China , with his chief chronicler having "[written] fifteen chapters describing" what

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6014-536: The inflexibility in the centrally planned food procurement system explains at least half of the famine mortality. Economic historians James Kung and Shuo Chen show that there was more over-procurement in places where politicians faced more competition. In addition, policies from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the central government, particularly the Three Red Banners and the Socialist Education Movement (SEM), proved to be ideologically detrimental to

6111-414: The key factors in the famine, or at least worsened nature-induced disasters. In particular, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen puts this famine in a global context, arguing that lack of democracy is the major culprit: "Indeed, no substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country—no matter how poor." He adds that it is "hard to imagine that anything like this could have happened in a country that goes to

6208-465: The left, with the 月 'Moon' component on the right. Li Si ( d.  208 BC ), the Chancellor of Qin, attempted to universalize the Qin small seal script across China following the wars that had politically unified the country for the first time. Li prescribed the 朙 form of the word for 'bright', but some scribes ignored this and continued to write the character as 明 . However,

6305-454: The local population. By creating an environment in which the Great Leap Forward did not become fully implemented, the Jiangxi government "did their best to minimize damage". From these findings, scholars Manning and Wemheuer concluded that much of the severity of the famine was due to provincial leaders and their responsibility for their regions. In 1958, there was a notable regional flood of

6402-548: The massive Soviet-created famine in Ukraine (the Holodomor ), doctors were prohibited from listing "starvation" as a cause of death on death certificates. This kind of deception was far from uncommon; a famous propaganda picture from the famine shows Chinese children from Shandong province ostensibly standing atop a field of wheat, so densely grown that it could apparently support their weight. In reality, they were standing on

6499-402: The most prominent Chinese authors of the 20th century, stated that "if Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die" ( 漢字不滅，中國必亡 ). During the 1930s and 1940s, discussions regarding simplification took place within the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party. Many members of the Chinese intelligentsia maintained that simplification would increase literacy rates throughout the country. In 1935,

6596-555: The nation's planned economy; requiring the use of poor agricultural techniques; the Four Pests campaign that reduced sparrow populations (which disrupted the ecosystem); over-reporting of grain production; and ordering millions of farmers to switch to iron and steel production. During the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in early 1962, Liu Shaoqi , then President of China , formally attributed 30% of

6693-535: The peasant population ended up being too weak to be used commercially. Economists Xin Meng, Nancy Qian and Pierre Yared showed that, much as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen had earlier claimed, aggregate production was sufficient for avoiding famine and that the famine was caused by over-procurement and poor distribution within the country. They show that unlike most other famines, there were surprisingly more deaths in places that produced more food per capita, explaining that

6790-730: The polls regularly and that has an independent press. During that terrible calamity the government faced no pressure from newspapers, which were controlled, and none from opposition parties, which were absent." Sen though also argues: "Despite the gigantic size of excess mortality in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former. [...] India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame." Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write

6887-430: The public and quickly fell out of official use. It was ultimately formally rescinded in 1986. The second-round simplifications were unpopular in large part because most of the forms were completely new, in contrast to the familiar variants comprising the majority of the first round. With the rescission of the second round, work toward further character simplification largely came to an end. In 1986, authorities retracted

6984-501: The public security bureau began hunting down the writer. One of the post office's counter staff recalled that a pockmarked woman had mailed the letter. The local public security bureau rounded up and interrogated every pockmarked woman without identifying the culprit. It was subsequently determined that the writer worked in Zhengzhou and had written the letter upon returning to her home village and seeing people starving to death. Like in

7081-465: The recently conquered parts of the empire is generally seen as being the first real attempt at script reform in Chinese history. Before the 20th century, variation in character shape on the part of scribes, which would continue with the later invention of woodblock printing , was ubiquitous. For example, prior to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) the character meaning 'bright' was written as either 明 or 朙 —with either 日 'Sun' or 囧 'window' on

7178-481: The same set of simplified characters as mainland China. The first round was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969, consisting of 498 simplified characters derived from 502 traditional characters. A second round of 2287 simplified characters was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the mainland China system; these were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted

7275-443: The scale of the famine, some have speculated that the resulting cannibalism could be described as "on a scale unprecedented in the history of the 20th century". The Great Chinese Famine was caused by a combination of radical agricultural policies, social pressure, economic mismanagement, and natural disasters such as droughts and floods in farming regions. The Chinese Communist Party introduced drastic changes in farming policy during

7372-402: The second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi . Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan , one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. ... I had seen people who had told

7469-467: The second round completely, though they had been largely fallen out of use within a year of their initial introduction. That year, the authorities also promulgated a final version of the General List of Simplified Chinese Characters . It was identical to the 1964 list save for 6 changes—including the restoration of 3 characters that had been simplified in the first round: 叠 , 覆 , 像 ; the form 疊

7566-526: The severity of the famine in various ways, including causing the "illusion of superabundance" (浮夸风). Once the exaggerations of crop yields from the Mass Line were reported, "no one dared to 'dash cold water ' " on further reports. The SEM also led to the establishment of conspiracy theories in which the peasants were believed to be pretending to be hungry in order to sabotage the state grain purchase. Local governments had just as much, if not more, influence on

7663-516: The soil (1 to 2 Chinese feet or 33 to 66 cm). The deep plowing theory stated that the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, and plowing unusually deeply would allow extra-strong root growth. While deep plowing can increase yields in some contexts, the policy is generally considered to have hindered yields in China. In the Four Pests campaign, citizens were called upon to destroy mosquitoes, rats, flies, and sparrows. The mass eradication of

7760-456: The southwest of the county, there is Xiaoluo Mountain, hence the name. Tang Wude four years (612 years) set South Luozhou, led Luoshan County. Wude eight years (625 years) South Luozhou waste, Luoshan County is Shenzhou. Five generations with the Tang system. Song Kaibao nine years (976 years) Luoshan County waste. In the third year of the reign of Emperor Xixi (986), it belonged to Xinyang Army. In

7857-437: The sparrows resulted in an increase of the population of crop-eating insects, which had no predators without the sparrows. Beginning in 1957, the Chinese Communist Party began to report excessive production of grain because of pressure from superiors. However, the actual production of grain throughout China was decreasing from 1957 to 1961. For example: This series of events resulted in an "illusion of superabundance" (浮夸风), and

7954-501: The tens of millions (15 to 55 million). The most stricken provinces were Anhui (18% dead), Chongqing (15%), Sichuan (13%), Guizhou (11%) and Hunan (8%). The major contributing factors in the famine were the policies of the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962) and people's communes , launched by Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong , such as inefficient distribution of food within

8051-427: The traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. The Chinese government has never officially announced the completion of the simplification process after the bulk of characters were introduced by the 1960s. In the wake of the Cultural Revolution , a second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977—largely composed of entirely new variants intended to artificially lower the stroke count, in contrast to

8148-833: The traditional character 強 , with 11 strokes is standardised as 强 , with 12 strokes, which is a variant character. Such characters do not constitute simplified characters. The new standardized character forms shown in the Characters for Publishing and revised through the Common Modern Characters list tend to adopt vulgar variant character forms. Since the new forms take vulgar variants, many characters now appear slightly simpler compared to old forms, and as such are often mistaken as structurally simplified characters. Some examples follow: The traditional component 釆 becomes 米 : The traditional component 囚 becomes 日 : The traditional "Break" stroke becomes

8245-500: The truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it? Yu Dehong, the secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960, stated: I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people. There are widespread oral reports, though little official documentation, of human cannibalism being practiced in various forms as

8342-522: The use of characters entirely. Instead, Chao proposed that the language be written with an alphabet, which he saw as more logical and efficient. The alphabetization and simplification campaigns would exist alongside one another among the Republican intelligentsia for the next several decades. Recent commentators have echoed some contemporary claims that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time. Lu Xun , one of

8439-400: The weather contributed to the appalling drop in output, but it is impossible to assess to what extent. Despite these claims, other scholars have provided provincial-level demographic panel data which quantitatively proved that weather was also an important factor, particularly in those provinces which experienced excessively wet conditions. According to economist Daniel Houser and others, 69% of

8536-452: The worsening famine. The Three Red Banners of the CCP "sparked the fanaticism of 1958". The implementation of the Mass line , one of the three banners which told people to "go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, better, and more economical results", is cited in connection to the pressures officials felt to report a superabundance of grain. The SEM, established in 1957, also led to

8633-464: Was abandoned, confirmed by a speech given by Zhou Enlai in 1958. In 1965, the PRC published the List of Commonly Used Characters for Printing  [ zh ] (hereafter Characters for Printing ), which included standard printed forms for 6196 characters, including all of the forms from the 1956 scheme. A second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977, but was poorly received by

8730-480: Was accused of being a " capitalist roader " during the Cultural Revolution and was purged twice. In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new Paramount Leader of China and launched the historic Reforms and Opening Up program which fundamentally changed the agricultural and industrial system in China. Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance was that the famine was largely a result of

8827-418: Was an astonishing loss of food availability associated with Maoist state appropriation". Along with collectivization , the central government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques that would be based on the ideas of later-discredited Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko . One of these ideas was close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again. The theory

8924-552: Was changed to Suining. Chenghua Decade (1475) is a copy of Xinyang Prefecture. Luoshan in the Qing dynasty belonged to Suining. In the 2nd year of the Republic of China (1913), the waste state was changed to the county, and Luoshan County belonged to Henan South Road, and later changed to Xiangyang Road. In the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927), it was abolished and directly under Henan Province. In 17 years (1928), Henan Province

9021-529: Was described as a "blatant political radical who almost single-handedly damaged Anhui". Jiangxi encountered a situation almost opposite to that of Anhui. The leaders of Jiangxi publicly opposed some of the Great Leap programs, quietly made themselves unavailable, and even appeared to take a passive attitude towards the Maoist economy. As the leaders worked collaboratively among themselves, they also worked with

9118-513: Was divided into 14 administrative districts, and Luoshan was the seventh (Xinyang) Inspector Administrative Region. In the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932), it was assigned to the ninth (Huangchuan) administrative inspectorate of Henan Province. In the 22nd year of the Republic of China (1933), it was analyzed in the southern part of the county. It was newly established in Lishan County, Hubei Province, now Dawu County. In March 1949,

9215-417: Was increases in crop yield of one thousand to three thousand percent achieved, supposedly, in massive 24-hour pushes organized by the officials which they called "sputnik launches". But the numbers were faked, and so were the fields that Mao observed, which had been carefully prepared in advance of Mao's visit by local officials, who removed shoots of grain from various fields and carefully transplanted them into

9312-400: Was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In natural cycles they did fully compete, which actually stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Another policy known as " deep plowing " was based on the ideas of Lysenko's colleague Terentiy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to eschew normal plowing depths of 15–20 centimeters and instead plow deeply into

9409-434: Was then appropriated by the state and distributed at its discretion. In 2008, former deputy editor of Yanhuang Chunqiu and author Yang Jisheng would summarize his perspective of the effect of the production targets as an inability for supply to be redirected to where it was most demanded: In Xinyang , people starved at the doors of the grain warehouses. As they died, they shouted, "Communist Party, Chairman Mao, save us". If

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