Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 7/8

November 17, 2011

When I asked my wife her opinion [who lived through the Great Leap Forward (GLF) as a child and then was a teen in Shanghai and spent a few years in a labor camp during The Cultural Revolution] she doubted if the number of people that died of starvation in China during the GLF were anywhere near the massive numbers Western authors such as Frank Dikotter claim.

My wife then mentioned a few memoirs she had read of troops from Division A-341 of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which guarded Mao, the Forbidden City (where Mao lived) and Beijing during the GLF.

The memoirs of a number of Mao’s personal PLA bodyguards from Division A-341 revealed that when Party members told Mao that rural Chinese in a few provinces were starving due to droughts and low crop yields, Mao did not believe what he was told.

However, to verify these claims, Mao sent people he trusted [troops from PLA Division A-341 that came from rural China] to their villages to investigate the claims of famine.


one in eight children in the United States go to bed hungry daily

When Mao’s trusted bodyguards returned in late 1960 or early 1961 and reported that the claims were true, Mao acted swiftly, cancelled the GLF several years early sending the peasants back to their villages from the collectives, and directed the Party to seek help from other countries to feed the people.

As my wife said, (due to Piety—considered the First of all Virtues, which I wrote of here) the Party would never have ordered an end to the Great Leap Forward without Mao’s permission. The orders had to come from Mao and according to the memoirs of his personal bodyguards, he was the one that made the decision to end the GLF, five-year plan early and have China ask for outside help, which started to arrive from Canada and Australia in 1961.

In fact, Roderick MacForquhar wrote in his book, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, that in May 1961, China entered into long-term arrangements with Canada and Australia to insure grain supplies until production in China recovered in addition to imports of American grain laundered through France to avoid the complete American embargo.

Continued on November 18, 2011 in Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 8 or return to Part 6

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Recommended reading on this topic for those who seek the unblemished truth: From the Monthly Review, Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball

From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 6/8

November 16, 2011

World Life Expectancy.com (WLE) shows that in one decade between 1960 and 70 (Mao did not die until 1976), life expectancy in Indonesia was 47.9, India 49.3 and China 61.7.

Did you do the math and see the results of Mao’s policies regardless of the suffering during the Great Leap Forward (GLF) and the Cultural Revolution?  From 1960 to 1970, China added 25.4 years to life expectancy while Indonesia only added 6.4 years (six “point” four in case you missed the dot) and India seven years.

Then by 1980, Indonesia was 54.8, India 55.7 and China 65.5.

In 1990, Indonesia was 61.7, India 59.7 and China 68.3.

In 2000, Indonesia was 67.5, India 62.5, and China 71.4

In 2010, Indonesia was 71.1, India 66.5 and China 74.5

NCBI.gov (the US National Institute of Health) says, “Since the establishment of a new social order in 1949, China’s attempts to feed and nurture its large population has been a topic of serious study in many disciplines… In 1949, the life expectancy in China was only 36 years. In early 1980s, it has increased to 68 years.”

Since the NCBI says life expectancy in 1949 was 36 years and in 1960, it was 36.3 years (according to WLE), it is safe to say that the mortality rate in China in 1960 was still closer to 38 per 1000 and not 10 per 1000 as Frank Dikotter, the author of “Mao’s Great Famine” claims.

This increase in life expectancy is attributed mostly to improved nutrition and lowering of mortality rates due to decreases in infectious diseases. In fact, during the most dramatic gains in life expectancy, Mao ruled China (1949 – 1976).

Overwhelming facts from reliable sources show that Mao’s policies increased life expectancy and decreased mortality rates during the era he ruled, which included the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

That does not mean suffering did not take place but it does prove that even during hard times, life expectancy in China improved dramatically while mortality rates dropped.


 mentions the British caused famines in India/Ireland and who really managed the Great Leap Forward in China
This video makes a case that only three million may have died from the famine.

After reading Lu and Chen’s figures, which were supported by Judith Banister’s work, China’s Changing Population (Stanford University Press – 1987), along with facts from the WLE and NCBI.gov, I sat down with my wife, who as a child grew up in Shanghai during the GLF, and lived with the hunger but only remembers hearing of a few people that died of starvation in rural China and never saw anyone starving to death in Shanghai.

Continued on November 17, 2011 in Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 7 or return to Part 5

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Recommended reading on this topic for those who seek the unblemished truth: From the Monthly Review, Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball

From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 5/8

November 15, 2011

To wrap up his rebuttal, Amazon reviewer W Y Lu of Hong Kong says, Dikotter gets his 45 million by (a) inflating mortality rates gleaned from the archives by 50%, and (b) assuming a ridiculously low ‘normal’ death rate (the same as developed countries in the West) – even though China throughout the 1950s was one of the most wretchedly poor countries on earth.

A second review by M Chen uses similar evidence to refute Dikotter’s bogus claims of what happened in China during the Great Leap Forward (GLF) as mass murder.

Chen says 10 per 1000 deaths annually was the mortality rate in the advanced industrialized West in 1960, while mortality rates for the other big Asian countries in 1960 for India was 24 per 1000, Indonesia 23 per 1000, and Pakistan 23 per 1000

Chen says, “Dikotter claimed the GLF started early 1958 and ended in late 1962.”  However, Judith Banister proved that theory false showing that the famine ended as early as 1961, while other valid evidence proves the droughts and floods that caused the famine and loss of life didn’t hit until 1959.

If China lowered the mortality rate between 1949 and 1958 from 38 per 1000 to 10 per 1000, a miracle must have taken place because the mortality rate Dikotter claims as normal for China was lower than the UK (11.5 per 1000) and France (11.4 per 1000) in 1960.

In addition, World Life Expectancy.com shows that in 1960, life expectancy in China was 36.3 years while India was 42.3 and Indonesia 41.5, which supports the higher mortality rate in China that Lu and Chen defend.

Continued on November 16, 2011 in Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 6 or return to Part 4

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Recommended reading on this topic for those who seek the unblemished truth: From the Monthly Review, Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball

From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 4/8

November 14, 2011

Amazon reviewer W Y Lu of Hong Kong said, there is absolutely no evidence the atrocities Dikotter mentions were ordered from the top. In fact, quite the opposite – they were often uncovered, even by Dikotter’s own admission, by investigatory teams sent out by the central authorities (Note — and later by members of Mao’s personal bodyguard sent to verify the claims of starvation Mao was hearing from Party members, which he doubted at first.)

Lu says, the fact is, even using Dikotter’s figures (grossly inflated as they are), China’s mortality during the Great Leap Forward (GLF) was in fact slightly lower than that of India’s at the end of British rule – just 9 years earlier.

“The calculation is very simple,” Lu says. ‘Excess’ deaths are calculated by counting all the deaths that happen in one year, and subtracting them from a mortality the researcher assumes would have been the case had the GLF not happened. ”

Dikotter adopts a ‘normal’ crude mortality in China of 10 per 1000 people annually. He then counts deaths above this number as the excess deaths caused by the GLF.


facts about extreme poverty and hunger

Lu then points out that Dikotter also increased (inflated) the mortality numbers by 50% to allow for under-reporting and came up with an average annual mortality of around 27.3 per 1000 during the GLF.

However, Lu then says, “A crude mortality of 27.3 per 1000 in the late 50s & early 60s was in fact quite typical for developing countries. ”

Lu then points out that India and Indonesia’s mortality rates were 23 and 24 per 1000 respectively, and China’s mortality in 1949, just 8 years before the Great Leap Forward was 38 per 1000 (Source: China’s Changing Population by Judith Banister).

In her book, Banister mentions evidence that a famine did take place in China at this time and that the famine reduced fertility rates but says the fertility rate rebounded at least one year earlier than would be expected on the basis of grain production statistics, which can only be explained if supply and distribution of food improved considerably during 1961 as the government imported grain (from Canada and Australia—both allies of the US that broke ranks with the complete American embargo of China) and tried to ensure minimum supplies in famine areas.

Continued on November 15, 2011 in Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Recommended reading on this topic for those who seek the unblemished truth: From the Monthly Review, Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball

From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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7 Comments | America, capitalism, China, Chinese history, Communism, democracy, history, India, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 3/8

November 13, 2011

Before I reveal new evidence to cast doubt on the claims of Mao’s critics in the West, two more books blame Mao for the loss of life due to the famine that took place during The Great Leap Forward (GLF).

In Mao’s Great Famine (September 2010), Frank Dikotter claimed, “that as many as 45 million Chinese died from starvation, execution, and maltreatment under forced labor.”

Then, in Eating Bitterness (February 2011), two editors that compiled this book claimed that some “30 million peasants died of starvation and exhaustion during the GLF”.

I find it interesting how two editors claim the loss life was from starvation and exhaustion while another author claimed it was from starvation, execution, maltreatment and forced labor with a difference of 15 million deaths, which is a huge disparity.

In addition, In Henry Kissinger’s On China (pg 184), he says, “The Great Leap Forward’s production goals were exorbitant, and the prospect of dissent or failure so terrifyhing that local cadres took to falsifying their output figures and reporting inflated totals to Beijing.” Then Kissinger says this led to the deaths of over twenty million people from starvation–twenty-five (25) million less than Dikotter’s inflated claim. Other’s have estimated the loss of life closer to 15 million.


Famines throughout the Ages: 19th to 21st Century

It appears, that as the false accusations and the fraud grows, so does the emotional language.

There is a name for books of this sort, and it is “Yellow Journalism” where writers take advantage of popular opinions and without valid evidence spread lies and exaggerations as if they were the truth. I’m sure those authors laugh all the way to the bank too.

Before I continue, I want to mention that in 1949, the average life expectancy in China was 36 and in 1960, it was 36.3 years of age, as you shall eventually see from a reliable source. It has been estimated that it took at least a decade for the Chinese Communist Party to establish a political/governmental infrastructure in all or most of China, which means goals to develop the country and improve health were not in full swing until about 1959.

As for how many starved, theories abound and cover a wide spectrum and all the higher numbers of deaths are easily challenged as two Amazon reviewers of Dikotter’s flawed and biased book demonstrate with impressive facts.

From these two Amazon reviewers, I learned something new I did not consider in my post of China’s Great Famine (1959-1961) Fact of Fiction.

Continued on November 14, 2011 in Mao’s ‘alleged’ Guilt in the Land of Famines – Part 4 or return to Part 2

View as Single Page

Recommended reading on this topic for those who seek the unblemished truth: From the Monthly Review, Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball

From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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