DH went to ESL classes around 1983, and a couple of Chinese students were in the class. ONe mentioned that people were eating babies or children, other peoples’ (they’d switch) becausce people were starving. I think during the Great Leap Forward when everyone was supposed to make iron and weren’t farming enough. The teacher shushed the Chinese woman right up and class went on. I know many starved during that time.
Hmm, maybe wasn’t the GLF, seems too early, but at some other later time:
The Great Leap Forward of the People’s Republic of China was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party from 1958 to 1962. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people’s communes
No doubt there was some cannibalism due to starvation, as has occurred many times in many places throughout history.
I can’t remember where I read it, but I read of accounts of mid-level Chinese Communist members encouraging and in some cases the eating of dissidents, just like some tribes in the Amazon and remote South Pacific islands are said to have done this to enemy tribes up until fairly recently.
Of course, Idi Amin was said....