Northwest Famine Study In The 20th Century, 20-40 Years

The 1920s-1940s period had witnessed a secession of severe and drastic natural disasters occurred in the North-West part of China, since the foundation of the Republic of China. There is no exaggeration to say that the disasters befell upon the people there each year. Various kinds of disasters formed an encyclopedia of natural disasters ever happed. The disasters in form of floods and draughts had the similar characteristics with those occuned in other provinces. On the whole, the disasters are characterized by great coverage and increasing repetition. The disasters not only led to the decreasing of the population and degrading of the people's physique ,but also led to the collapse of the long-established morality, the decreasing of the labor force and laboring animals, the expanses of uncultivated arable land, and to the decreasing of agricultural production, and finally to the totally collapse of the economy in the countryside. Under the great pressure of the disasters, the Northern Warlords and Nanking government provided much efforts to help relieve the sufferings of the local people. The Nanking Government, in particular, having both inherit the traditional experience in disaster-relieving and learned from the experience of the western counties, established a very sound and efficient disaster-relieving system, the combined methods of preventing and relieving disasters in the meantime had given a great push to the modernization of china's disaster-relieving system. What is more, some non-governmental charity organizations such as Hua Yang Charity Association and other international relief organizations also constitute the characteristics of the disaster-relieving activities in the North-West part of China.