In spring 1936, reports of drought and starvation in Sichuan began to appear in the press in China and overseas.^[1] By the following year it was being reported that two thirds of the countryside in the normally fertile province had turned to ‘hard, grassless clay’,^[2] while according to a survey of the Szechwan Famine Relief Commission 30 million people were affected in 140 out of 149 hsien (districts) in the province.^[3] Continue reading →