The Disappeared

In: FP, Heft 198

Abstract

China's greatest catastrophe came during its 'Great Leap Forward' era, when at least 45 million people died of starvation over a period of four years. Virtually no photographic evidence of this period remains, as the Red Guards, Mao's armed revolutionaries probably destroyed much of it, but it's a good guess that photographs of the famines are still locked away in party vaults. Why does China still hide evidence of its own mass starvation? Adapted from the source document.