Chinese famine of 1942–1943
The Henan Famine | |
---|---|
Country | China |
Period | Summer 1942 – Spring 1943 |
Total deaths | 700,000 – 1 million.[1] |
Causes | Caused by drought, locusts, Second Sino-Japanese War, 1938 Yellow River flood, corruption, and government inefficiency |
The Henan Famine of 1942–1943 (Chinese: 1942–1943河南大饑荒) occurred in
Famine
Causes
Henan had previously suffered as a result of the war. Thousands of its young men had already been conscripted. In 1938 the
In 1942 the spring and summer rains failed, causing drought. In addition to this, locusts caused much damage to the existing harvest. The result was that the supply of grain in the affected areas was reduced greatly. This started to make itself felt by the winter of that year. Yet Chinese and Japanese authorities in the affected areas continued their grain requisition policies in order to feed their soldiers. Environmental historian Micah S. Muscolino also suggests that there is a link between the deliberate flooding of the Yellow River in 1938 and the 1942 famine as the flooding 'contributed to a total disruption of Henan's hydraulic and agricultural systems'.[3]
The terrible conditions that the famine created were vividly described by journalist
In his work China's War with Japan, 1937 – 1945, which is broadly sympathetic[original research?] to Chiang Kai-shek, Rana Mitter places much of the blame at the hands of corrupt or incompetent local officials. He notes that Chiang announced a reduction in the grain quota for Henan, but the head of the Henan grain administration collected more than the quota demanded anyway.[8] Officials in the neighboring provinces refused to send their surplus grain to Henan.[9] A further example of this incompetence and corruption comes from Runan County where a grain storage system had been set up at the outbreak of war. However, officials there had never actually stored the grain and used it instead to make private deals.[10] Theodore White described being invited to a feast by local authorities which included delicacies such as 'chicken, beef, water chestnut and three cakes with sugar frosting'.[11] The Chongqing government is, however, blamed for reacting slowly and sending paper money instead of food for relief.[12] Mitter notes that the famine can be seen as a consequence of the reduction of the Nationalist government's authority over the provinces as the war dragged on.[13] He also says that Chiang's government was also reluctant to press further for a reduction in the grain tax when national survival was at stake.[14]
Death toll
Modern academics put the famine deaths to be "well under one million", probably around 700,000. The official count of 1,484,983, compiled in 1943, was later found to grossly exaggerated as it included fertility loss (decline in births) and outward migration.[1] Quantitative calculations found that "fertility loss and excess deaths would have made a similar contribution to total population loss [of combined 1,484,983]".[1]
Another common incorrect figure, 3 to 5 millions deaths, is "generally unsourced or based on the estimates of eyewitnesses such as
Below shows the county breakdown of the grossly exaggerated official count of 1,484,983, compiled in 1943. The figures is better served as a comparison among counties on the level of famine severity.[1]
County | Death Toll | County | Death Toll | County | Death Toll |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mengxian (孟县) | 95,121 | Yuxian (禹县) | 151,028 | Changge (长葛) | 58,802 |
Huangchuan (潢川) | 37,392 | Xingyang (荥阳) | 30,347 | Weishi (尉氏) | 29,654 |
Xinzheng (新郑) | 34,353 | Mixian (密县) | 34,593 | Guangwu (广武) | 15,875 |
Sishui (汜水) | 14,306 | Xuchang (许昌) | 183,472 | Lushan ( 鲁山) | 13,822 |
Linying (临颖) | 79,715 | Xiangxian (襄县) | 118,433 | Yanling (鄢陵) | 108,498 |
Linru (临汝) | 36,446 | Baofeng (宝丰) | 11,539 | Jiaxian ( 郏县) | 34,458 |
Yancheng (郾城) | 40,835 | Yexian (叶县) | 103,737 | Fangcheng (方城) | 38,974 |
Fugou (扶沟) | 44,210 | Xihua (西华) | 51,989 | Shangshui (商水) | 25,899 |
Xiangcheng (项城) | 32,147 | Shenqiu (沈邱) | 12,815 | Dengfeng (登封) | 23,517 |
Shanxian (陕县) | 19,100 | Yanshi (偃师) | 7,916 | Total | 1,488,993 |
Political ramifications
In
Legacy
The Chinese famine of 1942–1943 has been referred to as 'China's forgotten famine',[19] overshadowed by the war that took place around it and the much greater famine of 1958–61. Even in Henan itself this tragic period is not well remembered or talked about, with novelist Liu Zhenyun saying that there is a 'collective amnesia' in the province.[20] Interest in the event has rekindled in recent years, however, with the release of the film Back to 1942, adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novel Remembering 1942. [21]
References
- ^ S2CID 146274415.
A detailed survey organized by the Nationalist government in 1943 of the impact of the famine came up with a toll of 1,484,983, broken down by county. The official population registers of Henan show a net decline in population from 1942 to 1943 of one million people, or 3 per cent of the population. If we assume that the natural rate of increase in the population before the famine was 2 per cent (as was the case prior to the outbreak of war, but not during the war), the resulting figure of 5 per cent of the population or 1.7 million people is assumed after the famine. This is consistent with the official figure, and includes both fertility loss (decline in births due to the famine) and outward migration as well as excess deaths. Whereas no reliable data on migration is available, comparison with other famines would suggest that fertility loss and excess deaths would have made a similar contribution to total population loss, which means that the tally of excess deaths is likely to have been well under one million. [...] The statistical tallies of the 1942 famine carry political significance today. The death toll of 'over 3 million' cited by Xia Mingfang implies that the 'Nationalist famine' in Henan was quantitatively worse than the 'Communist famine' that occurred 15 years later.
- ^ Rana Mitter (2013). China's War with Japan, 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival. London: Allen Lane. p. 268.
- ^ Muscolino (2011), p. 294.
- ^ a b White, Theodore (22 March 1943). "Until the Harvest Is Reaped". Time. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
- ^ Diana Lary (2010). The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation. Cambridge University Press. p. 124.
- ^ Odoric Y. K . Wou. (2007). 'Food shortage and Japanese grain extraction in Henan'. IN: Stephen MacKinnon, Diana Lary and Ezra F. Vogel (eds.), China at War: Regions of China. p. 178.
- ^ Lary (2010). p. 124.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 269.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 268.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 271.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 272.
- ^ Mitter (2013), pp. 271–273.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 273.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 275.
- ^ "騰訊歷史:1942–1943年河南到底死了多少人?". Archived from the original on 22 July 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 275.
- ^ Ralph Thaxton (2008). Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village. Cambridge University Press. p. 56.
- ^ Mitter (2013), p. 280.
- ^ News China Magazine (January 2013) 'The Forgotten Famine' Archived 2014-09-14 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Liu Zhenyun (November 2012). 'Memory, Loss'. Published in The New York Times. [1]
- )
Further reading
- Garnaut, Anthony. "A quantitative description of the Henan famine of 1942." Modern Asian Studies 47.6 (2013): 2007-2045. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X13000103
- Muscolino, Micah S. The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950 (Cambridge UP, 2014).
- Ó Gráda, Cormac. "The ripple that drowns? Twentieth‐century famines in China and India as economic history 1." Economic History Review 61 (2008): 5–37 online.
External links
- Images of the famine Archived 30 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine