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Chinese famine of 1942–1943
Chinese famine of 1942–1943
Country	Henan, China
Period	Summer 1942 – Spring 1943
Total deaths	700,000 – 3 million
Causes	Caused by drought, locusts, Second Sino-Japanese War, 1938 Yellow River flood, corruption, and government inefficiency

The Henan famine of 1942–1943 (Chinese: 河南大饑荒) occurred within the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War and resulted from a combination of natural and human factors. Anthony Garnaut put the death toll to be "well under one million", probably around 700,000.^[1] While Lloyd Eastman puts it between 2 and 3 million dead.^[2] 15 years later Henan was struck by the deadlier Great Chinese famine.^[1]

Famine

Causes

Henan had previously suffered as a result of the war. Thousands of its young men had already been conscripted. In 1938 the Nationalist government flooded the Yellow River in an attempt to stop the advance of the Japanese, flooding through eastern and central Henan, central Anhui and north-central Jiangsu. As many as 400,000 to 500,000 Northern Chinese civilians and Japanese soldiers may have died from famine, disease and flooding. When Japanese troops did enter the area they caused much destruction, which contributed to causing the famine.^[3] By the time of the famine itself, Henan was divided, with the eastern half of the province under occupation by Japan and the western half part unoccupied and nominally under the authority of the Nationalist government based in Chongqing.

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'.^[4]

The terrible conditions that the famine created were vividly described by journalist Theodore White in a special report written for Time magazine, published in March 1943.^[5] Cannibalism was rife and parents sold their children just to survive.^[6] Disease bred in these conditions, contributing greatly to the death toll.^[7] Relief efforts were organized by the government, and by Christian missionaries operating in the area.^[8]

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.^[9] Officials in the neighboring provinces refused to send their surplus grain to Henan.^[10] 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.^[11] 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'.^[12] The Chongqing government is, however, blamed for reacting slowly and sending paper money instead of food for relief.^[13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15]

Death toll

Anthony Garnaut, a historian teaching at the University of Melbourne, puts 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 be 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]", according to Garnaut.^[1] Another common incorrect figure, 3 to 5 millions deaths, is "generally unsourced or based on the estimates of eyewitnesses such as Theodore White,^[5] and always without reference to detailed demographic data".^[1] Such high-end estimate tends to be politically motivated in favour of Maoism to make the Great Chinese famine in 1959–1961 look less deadly in comparison.^[1]

Lloyd Eastman, on his part, claims that 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 died as a result of the famine which caused a further 3,000,000 to leave the province as refugees.^[2]

Below shows the county breakdown of the official count of 1,484,983, compiled in 1943. The figures are better served as a comparison among counties on the level of famine severity rather than as an accurate depiction of the true death toll of the famine.^[1]

Estimated death toll per county in Henan ^[16]
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 Communist-controlled areas, the authorities did reduce the grain quotas for those most affected by the drought. Mao Zedong exploited this for propaganda purposes to portray his government as more benevolent than the Nationalist government. This was effective as it became 'an obvious point of comparison'.^[15]^[17] The Communists were able to pursue this policy in part because they depended on guerilla warfare and did not need to maintain a standing army in order to participate in the wartime alliance.^[18]

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 Great Chinese Famine of 1958–1961. Novelist Liu Zhenyun says that there is a "collective amnesia" in Henan about the famine.^[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

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Garnaut, Anthony (November 2013). "A Quantitative Description of the Henan Famine of 1942". Modern Asian Studies. 47 (6). Cambridge University Press: 2009–2010, 2034, 2044. doi:10.1017/S0026749X13000103. ISSN 1469-8099. 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.
^ ^a ^b ^c Albert Feuerwerker, John Fairbank (24 July 1986). The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13, Republican China 1912–1949, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 606. ISBN 978-0-521-24338-4.
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b 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.
^ 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]
^ Liu, Zhenyun; 刘震云 (2009). Wen gu yi jiu si er (Beijing di 1 ban ed.). Beijing. ISBN 978-7-02-006612-4. OCLC 436459187.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)