Yang Jisheng (journalist)

Beginning in the early 1990s, Yang began interviewing people and collecting records of the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961, in which his own foster father had died, eventually accumulating ten million words of records. He published a two-volume 1,208-page account of the period, in which he aimed to produce an account that is authoritative and can stand up to the challenge of official denial by the Chinese government. He begins the book, "I call this book Tombstone. It is a tombstone for my [foster] father who died of hunger in 1959, for the 36 million Chinese who also died of hunger, for the system that caused their death, and perhaps for myself for writing this book."[1] The book was published in Hong Kong and is banned in mainland China.[5][6] In 2012 translations into French, German, and English[7] (which has been condensed almost by 50%)[8] have been published.[9][10] He was reported to be banned from leaving China to receive the award in a ceremony in Harvard University to be held in March 2016.[11]

Journalist Anne Applebaum praised the book as being the definitive account of the Great Famine.[1][5]

Yang was awarded The Stieg Larsson prize 2015 for his 'stubborn and courageous work in mapping and describing the consequences' of The Great Leap Forward.[12] Yang was awarded the 2016 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism, selected by the Nieman Fellows at Harvard University. In the award citation, the fellows stated: "Through the determination and commitment required for this project, Mr. Yang clearly demonstrates the qualities of conscience and integrity. He provides inspiration to all who seek to document the truth in the face of influences, forces and regimes that may push against such transparency."[13]

Sun Jingxian, a Chinese mathematician, saw in the book a direct attack of China's political system asserting that Yang had done that by committing a distorted historical investigation.[14] He argued that Yang made serious methodological errors in his assumption that starvation deaths could be calculated by looking at the difference between the average number of deaths for a given period and the actual number of deaths for that same year.[14] Sun believed that this was an absurd mathematical formula and he called the book "extremely deceptive", characterizing it as faulty, inadequate and even fraudulent.[14] In an academic paper, Sun wrote:[14]

As a professional mathematician [...] we must seriously point out that from an academic point of view, [Yang's methodology] completely violates the basic principles that modern mathematics must follow when dealing with such problems.[14]

Additionally, political scientist and historian Yang Songlin disputes several of Yang Jisheng's claims, such as that the Chinese government under-reported deaths or manipulated data.[15]

Economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda, reviewing the book, stated that: "Yang tends to neglect the famine historical context and China's economic vulnerability". He notes that China was the "land of famine" because it was extremely poor and, in the 1950s, China was still extremely poor.[16] Ó Gráda also asserts that Yang's estimate of 40 million fewer births is excessive.[16]

Yang strongly dismissed related criticisms, especially from Sun Jingxian. He argued that the sources about population loss were reliable and Sun's claims were baseless and Sun himself seemed to be the case. Yang accused Sun of lacking basic knowledge about Chinese household registration system at that time and frequently using ad hominem attack. [17][18][19]