Chinese Civil War

AD – MPE: 0.1

ND – MPE: 2.9

The Chinese Civil War had two phases. The Sino-Japanese War is sometimes considered another phase, but its victims are included in the numbers for WWII.

The Chinese Civil War had two phases. For the first phase from 1928 to 1937 White cites estimates for total deaths of up to 5 million deaths on his website “Necrometrics”, but most estimates are much lower. At least one million civilians were killed. Rudolph Rummel claims that 2.7 million civilians were killed. But he tends to claim the highest numbers in most of his work.

For the second phase from 1945 to 1949 White cites three studies that claim about 1 million overall deaths and one study that claims 3 million. He also cites estimates of around 630,000 troops killed on both sides in this phase. So plausible estimates for phase 2 range from 0.3 to 2 million civilians. On his website Rummel claims that up to 5 million people were killed in both phases of the civil war.

Plausible estimates for civilians killed in both phases of the war range from 1.3 to 4.7 million. The most plausible estimate is 3 million. The US strongly supported Chiang Kai-Tschek’s Kuomintang during much of the Civil War. So I blame them for two to six percent of the victims. I consider 0.1 million to be the most plausible estimate.