Editing Great Leap Forward (section)

==== Methods of estimating the death toll and methods of identifying the sources of the error ====
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="float: right; margin:10px; border:1"
|+ Estimates of Great Chinese Famine death toll
|-
! scope="col" | Deaths<br>(millions)
! scope="col" | Author(s)
! scope="col" | Year
|-
|15
|Houser, Sands, and Xiao{{sfnp|Houser |Sands |Xiao |2009}}{{efn|This estimate concludes that the excess death count by manmade causes numbers some 10.3 million, 69% of the total estimated deaths.}}
|2005
|-
|18
|Yao<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yao |first=Shujie |year=1999 |title=A Note on the Causal Factors of China's Famine in 1959–1961 |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=107 |issue=6 |pages=1365–1369 |doi=10.1086/250100 }}</ref>
|1999
|-
| 23 || Peng{{sfnp|Peng|1987|pp=648–649}} || 1987
|-
| 27 || Coale{{sfnp|Coale|1984|p=7}}{{efn|Coale estimates 27 million deaths: 16 million from direct interpretation of official Chinese vital statistics followed by an adjustment to 27 million to account for under-counting.}} || 1984
|-
| 30 || Ashton, et al.<ref name="Ashton1984">{{harvp|Ashton|Hill|Piazza|Zeitz|1984|p=614}}. "Demographic evidence indicates that famine during 1958–61 caused almost 30 million premature deaths in China and reduced fertility very significantly. Data on food availability suggest that, in contrast to many other famines, a root cause of this one was a dramatic decline in grain output that continued for several years, involving a drop in output of more than 25 percent in 1960–61. Causes of this drop are found in both natural disaster and government policy."</ref>|| 1984
|-
| 30 || Banister{{sfnp|Banister|1987|pp=85, 118}} || 1987
|-
| 30 || Becker{{sfnp|Becker|1998|pp=270, 274}} || 1996
|-
| 32.5 || Cao<ref>{{harvp|Dikötter|2010|pp=324–325}}. Dikötter cites {{Cite book |last=Cao |first=Shuji |title=Da Jihuang (1959–1961): nian de Zhongguo renkou |publisher=Shidai guoji chuban youxian gongsi |year=2005 |location=Hong Kong |page=281 |language=zh |trans-title=The Great Famine: China's Population in 1959–1961}}</ref> || 2005
|-
| 36 || Yang{{sfnp|Yang|2012k|p=430}} || 2008
|-
| 38 || Chang and Halliday{{sfnp|Chang|Halliday|2005|p={{page needed|date=June 2024}}}}{{efn|[[Stuart Schram]] believes their estimate "may well be the most accurate".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schram |first=Stuart |author-link=Stuart Schram |title=Mao: The Unknown Story |journal=The China Quarterly |issue=189 |page=207}}</ref>}} || 2005
|-
| 38 || Rummel<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rummel |first=R. J. |date=10 October 2005 |title=Reevaluating China's Democide to 73,000,000 |url=http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/reevaluating-chinas-democide-to-73000000/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630190029/https://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/reevaluating-chinas-democide-to-73000000/ |archive-date=30 June 2018 |access-date=12 February 2013 |website=Democratic Peace |type=blog}}</ref> || 2008
|-
| 45 minimum || Dikötter<ref name="Dikötter2010 p. xii">{{harvp|Dikötter|2010|pp=xii–xiii, 333|loc="at least 45 million people died unnecessarily"; "6 to 8 percent of the victims were tortured to death or summarily killed—amounting to at least 2.5 million people"; "a minimum of 45 million excess deaths"}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Neill |first=Mark |date=5 September 2010 |title=45 million died in Mao's Great Leap Forward, Hong Kong historian says in new book |url=http://www.scmp.com/article/723956/revisiting-calamitous-time |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161023142821/http://www.scmp.com/article/723956/revisiting-calamitous-time |archive-date=23 October 2016 |access-date=2 December 2016 |website=South China Morning Post |quote=At least 45 million people died unnecessary deaths during China's Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, including 2.5 million tortured or summarily killed, according to a new book by a Hong Kong scholar. Mao's Great Famine traces the story of how Mao Zedong's drive for absurd targets for farm and industrial production and the reluctance of anyone to challenge him created the conditions for the countryside to be emptied of grain and millions of farmers left to starve.}}</ref>|| 2010
|-
|43 to 46 || Chen<ref>{{harvp|Becker|1996|pp=271–272}}. From an interview with Chen Yizi.</ref> || 1980
|-
|55 || Yu Xiguang<ref name="Grangereau2011" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Yu |first=Xiguang |title=Da Yuejin Kurezi |publisher=Shidai chaoliu chubanshe |year=2005 |location=Hong Kong |language=zh}}{{page needed|date=June 2024}}</ref> || 2005
|}
Some outlier estimates include 11 million by [[Utsa Patnaik]], an Indian Marxist economist,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Patnaik |first=Utsa |date=9 November 2018 |title=Ideological Statistics: Inflated Death Rates of China's Famine, the Russian one Ignored |url=http://www.socialisteconomist.com/2018/11/ideological-statistics-inflated-death.html |website=Socialist Economist |access-date=11 December 2021 |archive-date=26 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226175450/http://www.socialisteconomist.com/2018/11/ideological-statistics-inflated-death.html |url-status=live }}</ref> 3.66 million by Chinese mathematician Sun Jingxian ({{zhi|c=孙经先}})<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sun |first=Jingxian |date=April 2016 |title=Population Change during China's 'Three Years of Hardship' (1959 to 1961) |url=https://rpb115.nsysu.edu.tw/var/file/131/1131/img/2375/CCPS2(1)-Sun.pdf |journal=Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=453–500 |archive-date=9 December 2021 |access-date=11 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209003958/https://rpb115.nsysu.edu.tw/var/file/131/1131/img/2375/CCPS2%281%29-Sun.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and 2.6–4 million by Chinese historian and political economist Yang Songlin ({{zhi|c=杨松林}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yang |first=Songlin |title=Telling the Truth: China's Great Leap Forward, Household Registration and the Famine Death Tally |publisher=Springer |year=2021 |isbn=978-981-16-1660-0 |location=Singapore |doi=10.1007/978-981-16-1661-7 }}{{page needed|date=June 2024}}</ref>

The number of famine deaths during the Great Leap Forward has been estimated with different methods. Banister, Coale, and Ashton et al. compare age cohorts from the 1953, 1964, and 1982 censuses, yearly birth and death records, and results of the 1982 1:1000 fertility survey. From these they calculate excess deaths above a death rate interpolated between pre- and post-Leap death rates. All involve corrections for perceived errors inherent in the different data sets.{{sfnp|Banister|1987|pp=118–120}}{{sfnp|Coale|1984|pp=1, 7}}{{sfnp|Ashton|Hill|Piazza|Zeitz|1984|pp=613, 616–619}} Peng uses reported deaths from the vital statistics of 14 provinces, adjusts 10% for under reporting, and expands the result to cover all of China assuming similar mortality rates in the other provinces. He uses 1956/57 death rates as the baseline death rate rather than an interpolation between pre- and post-GLF death rates.{{sfnp|Peng|1987|pp=645, 648–649}}{{efn|Peng used the pre-Leap death rate as a base line under the assumption that the decrease after the Great Leap to below pre-Leap levels was caused by Darwinian selection during the massive deaths of the famine. He writes that if this drop was instead a continuation of the decreasing mortality in the years prior to the Great Leap, his estimate would be an underestimate.}}

Houser, Sands, and Xiao in their 2005 research study using "provincial-level demographic panel data and a Bayesian empirical approach in an effort to distinguish the relative importance of weather and national policy on China's great demographic disaster" conclude that "in aggregate, from 1959 to 1961 China suffered about 14.8 million excess deaths. Of those, about 69% (or 10.3 million) seem attributable to effects stemming from national policies."{{sfnp|Houser|Sands|Xiao|2009|p=156}}

Cao uses information from "local annals" to determine for each locality the expected population increase from normal births and deaths, the population increase due to migration, and the loss of population between 1958 and 1961. He then adds the three figures to determine the number of excess deaths during the period 1959–1961.{{sfnp|Yang|2012k|p=427}} Chang and Halliday use death rates determined by "Chinese demographers" for the years 1957–1963, subtract the average of the pre-and post-Leap death rates (1957, 1962, and 1963) from the death rates of each of the years 1958–1961, and multiply each yearly excess death rate by the year's population to determine excess deaths.{{sfnp|Chang|Halliday|2005|p=438}}

[[Chen Yizi]], a top adviser to [[CCP General Secretary]] [[Zhao Ziyang]] and former head of the Institute for Economic Structural Reform,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2014-04-25 |title=Chen Yizi, a Top Adviser Forced to Flee China, Dies at 73 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/world/asia/chen-yizi-a-top-adviser-forced-to-flee-china-dies-at-73.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241202235611/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/world/asia/chen-yizi-a-top-adviser-forced-to-flee-china-dies-at-73.html |archive-date=2 December 2024 |access-date= |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en }}</ref> concluded 43 million died in the famine after conducting a county-by-county review of deaths in five provinces and performing extrapolation.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Strauss |first1=Valerie |last2=Southerl |first2=Daniel |date=July 17, 1994 |title=HOW MANY DIED? NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS FAR HIGHER NUMBERS FOR THE VICTIMS OF MAO ZEDONG'S ERA |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190925173059/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |archive-date=2019-09-25 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> Chen was part of a large investigation group led by the Institute for Economic Structural Reform which "visited every province and examined internal Party documents and records".{{sfnp|Becker|1996|pp=271–272}}

Becker, Rummel, [[Frank Dikötter|Dikötter]], and Yang each compare several earlier estimates. Becker considers Banister's estimate of 30 million excess deaths to be "the most reliable estimate we have".{{sfnp|Becker|1998|pp=270, 274}} Rummel initially took Coale's 27 million as a "most likely figure",{{sfnp|Rummel|1991|p=248}} then accepted the later estimate of 38 million by Chang and Halliday after it was published.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rummel |first=Rudy J. |year=2005 |editor-last=Ciolek |editor-first=T. Matthew |title=Reevaluated democide totals for 20th C. and China |url=http://www.ciolek.com/spec/rummel-on-democide-2005.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140827070539/http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/rummel-on-democide-2005.html |archive-date=27 August 2014 |access-date=22 October 2016 |via=Asia Pacific Research Online}}</ref> Dikötter judged Chen's estimate of 43 to 46 million to be "in all likelihood a reliable estimate".{{sfnp|Dikötter|2010|p=333}} He also claimed that at least 2.5 million of these deaths were caused by beatings, tortures, or summary executions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bianco |first=Lucien |date=30 July 2011 |title=Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, ''The History of China's most devastating catastrophe, 1958–62'' |journal=China Perspectives |volume=2011 |issue=2 |pages=74–75 |doi=10.4000/chinaperspectives.5585 |doi-access=free}}</ref> On the other hand, Daniel Vukovich asserts that this claim is coming from a problematic and unverified reference, because Chen simply threw that number as an "estimate" during an interview and because Chen hasn't published any scholarly work on the subject.{{sfnp|Vukovich|2013|p=70}} Yang takes Cao's, Wang Weizhi's, and Jin Hui's estimates ranging from 32.5 to 35 million excess deaths for the period 1959–1961, adds his own estimates for 1958 (0.42 million) and 1962 (2.23 million) "based on official figures reported by the provinces" to get 35 to 37 million, and chooses 36 million as a number that "approaches the reality but is still too low".{{sfnp|Yang|2012k|p=430}}

Estimates contain several sources of error. National census data was not accurate and even the total population of China at the time was not known to within 50 to 100 million people.{{sfnp|Rummel|1991|p=235}} The statistical reporting system had been taken over by party cadre from statisticians in 1957,{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=13}} making political considerations more important than accuracy and resulting in a complete breakdown in the statistical reporting system.{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=13}}{{sfnp|Peng|1987|p=656}}{{sfnp|Ashton|Hill|Piazza|Zeitz|1984|p=630}}{{sfnp|Dikötter|2010|p=132}}{{sfnp|Becker|1996|p=267}} Population figures were routinely inflated at the local level, often in order to obtain increased rations of goods.{{sfnp|Dikötter|2010|p=333}} During the Cultural Revolution, a great deal of the material in the State Statistical Bureau was burned.{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=13}}

According to [[Jasper Becker]], under-reporting of deaths was also a problem. The death registration system, which was inadequate before the famine,{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=85}} was completely overwhelmed by the large number of deaths during the famine.{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=85}}{{sfnp|Becker|1996|pp=268–269}}{{sfnp|Dikötter|2010|p=327}} In addition, he claims that many deaths went unreported so that family members of the deceased could continue to draw the deceased's food ration and that counting the number of children who both were born and died between the 1953 and 1964 censuses is problematic.{{sfnp|Becker|1996|pp=268–269}} However, Ashton, et al. believe that because the reported number of births during the GLF seems accurate, the reported number of deaths should be accurate as well.{{sfnp|Ashton|Hill|Piazza|Zeitz|1984|p=617}} Massive internal migration made both population counts and registering deaths problematic,{{sfnp|Becker|1996|pp=268–269}} though Yang believes the degree of unofficial internal migration was small{{sfnp|Yang|2012|p=430}} and Cao's estimate takes internal migration into account.{{sfnp|Yang|2012k|p=427}}

Coale's, Banister's, Ashton et al.'s, and Peng's figures all include adjustments for demographic reporting errors, though Dikötter, in his book ''[[Mao's Great Famine]]'', argues that their results, as well as Chang and Halliday's, Yang's, and Cao's, are still underestimates.{{sfnp|Dikötter|2010|p=324. (Dikötter does not mention Coale on this page)}} The System Reform Institute's (Chen's) estimate has not been published and therefore it cannot be verified.{{sfnp|Yang|2012k|p=427}}