Question

China's femine was a result of government policy

Answer 1

According to the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Great Famine was caused by a string of natural disasters. Communist historiography refers to it not as the Great Famine but the “Three Years of Natural Disasters”. There are seeds of truth in this claim. In mid 1959 the Yellow River (or Huang Ho) flooded, causing thousands of drownings and ruined crops. According to government reports more than 40 million hectares (almost 100 million acres) of agricultural land were rendered useless. These floods were followed by a wave of further disasters: droughts, severe heat, more floods, typhoons, disease and insect infestations. In 1959 drought caused significant crop failures in Shaanxi (where output declined by more than 50 per cent) and Hubei (where it fell by 25 per cent). The following year Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces suffered prolonged droughts, their production falling by more than half. China’s southern and coastal provinces also endured 11 major typhoons. In 1961 the northern provinces again suffered months of drought, while those in the south endured more flooding.