Cannibalism in China

In the iconic novel "Medicine", written by the famous Chinese literator Lu Xun (1881-1936), we learn about an executioner, who secretly sold steamed bread soaked in the blood of executed prisoners (血饅頭) as a cure for "consumption".[2]

The Ming dynasty polymath, Li Shizhen, had detailed the use of human body parts for medical purposes, but condemned the use of human meat for medical treatment, calling the practice of cannibalism "stupid" and "foolish."[3]

In 2004, The Sydney Morning Herald reported a Chinese man in Beijing was arrested because it was believed he stole multiple corpses from nearby graveyards in order to make medicine for his sick wife out of a soup made by cooking the flesh of the corpses, and crushing the bones.[4]

In 2003, reports of some restaurants serving dead babies cooked into soups in Guangdong were sought to be blocked by the Provincial Public Security Bureau of Guangdong, with the police stating that these reports had been fabricated. 1990s Guangdong: Trafficked fetuses were boiled and sold as beauty treatments.[5]

As of 2012, human placentophagy is reported as "not uncommon" in China.[6]

Arthur Waldron, professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, has linked the notion of cannibalism to recent charges by Harry Wu, that the Chinese government is transplanting organs of condemned prisoners.[7]

There have been some reports of cannibalism for ideological reasons during the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. The most well documented example is in the village of Wuxuan, Guangxi Autonomous Region where in the local officials began to practise cannibalism between May and July 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, resulting in the imprisonment of 15 local officials. Although the Party and the relatives of the victims are aware of this, it has yet to be made public in China. In 1986 and 1988, Zheng Yi (郑义), a former Red Guard and the author of Scarlet Memorial, went down to Guangxi where he obtained documents detailing the cannibalism. "For the first time in our long history Chinese ate people, not because there was a famine and they were starving to death, but for political reasons. I think thousands participated in the cannibalism and at least many hundreds were eaten. The Party knows all about it," said Zheng.[8] According to Cheng, hundreds of men, women, and children deemed enemies of the Revolution were killed and eaten by the perpetrators, who even gave comments on the best way of preparing the meat – apparently by broiling, not boiling.[9]

• Organ harvesting in China
• Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body
• Great Chinese Famine

• Zheng Y (Cheng I), Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China (Westview Press, 1998) ISBN 0813326168
• Gang Yue, The Mouth That Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China (Duke University Press, 1999) ISBN 0822323419

• Hong Kong Reports Mainland Chinese Eating Infants (Next Magazine, Mar 29, 2007)