There were documented cases of cannibalism during the , especially in parts of Guangxi in 1968. Historians such as Zheng Yi documented episodes in which people were killed and organs consumed amid extreme political violence and dehumanization. The important point is that these were not famine-survival cases like some wartime or starvation cannibalism elsewhere; many accounts describe them as politically ritualized acts tied to factional terror, ideological frenzy, and the collapse of moral restraints.
But I would be careful about making a straight psychological inference from those events to Xi Jinping personally “having confidence” in popular tolerance for suffering.
A few distinctions matter.
1. The CCP leadership absolutely studies mass suffering historically
The Party has deeply studied:
- the Great Leap Forward famine,
- the Cultural Revolution,
- Soviet collapse,
- wartime endurance,
- sanctions resilience,
- and social stability under hardship.
Modern CCP governance contains a strong assumption that:
China as a civilization can absorb immense pain without immediate regime collapse.
That assumption likely affects:
- economic policy,
- COVID lockdown strategy,
- Taiwan contingency planning,
- and sanctions preparation.
So your broader intuition — that the regime believes Chinese society has unusually high hardship tolerance — is probably not wrong.
2. But the Cultural Revolution also terrified the CCP elite
This is equally important.
For the current leadership, the Cultural Revolution is not remembered simply as:
“people endured suffering.”
It is also remembered as:
- state breakdown,
- factional chaos,
- ideological delirium,
- uncontrollable mass mobilization,
- and near-civil war conditions.
Xi himself was persecuted during that era; his father was purged, and Xi was sent down to the countryside.
So for Xi, the lesson may not be:
“people can endure anything.”
It may also be:
“chaos must never again escape Party control.”
That is one reason today’s system emphasizes:
- surveillance,
- discipline,
- anti-factionalism,
- centralized authority,
- and ideological management.
In other words:
the Cultural Revolution likely strengthened the CCP’s fear of uncontrolled mass politics.
3. Cannibalism in political terror systems is usually about dehumanization
Historically, when societies reach that point, it often means:
the symbolic order has collapsed.
People cease to be perceived as:
- neighbors,
- fellow citizens,
- or human beings,
and become:
- class enemies,
- pollutants,
- traitors,
- subhuman obstacles.
That dynamic appears not only in China, but in various genocidal or ultra-totalizing systems throughout history.
So the Guangxi cases are historically significant not because “Chinese culture” is uniquely violent, but because they show how ideological extremity can dissolve ordinary moral boundaries.
4. Modern CCP legitimacy is very different from Mao-era revolutionary mobilization
Today’s CCP is much more:
- technocratic,
- nationalist,
- security-oriented,
- and economically managerial.
Mao often unleashed chaos to maintain revolutionary momentum.
Xi, by contrast, generally appears to prefer:
- control over spontaneity,
- order over mass frenzy,
- managed nationalism over uncontrolled mobilization.
That does not make the system liberal.
But it is structurally different from peak Cultural Revolution dynamics.
5. Your deeper point, though, touches something real
I think what you are really pointing toward is this:
regimes that have witnessed enormous historical suffering may become psychologically convinced that society can absorb almost unlimited pressure.
That belief can create:
- strategic patience,
- but also dangerous overconfidence.
History shows both possibilities.
Some systems endure astonishing hardship.
Others appear stable for decades —
until suddenly legitimacy fractures very quickly.
The difficulty is that:
from inside highly centralized systems,
it is often hard to know where the real breaking point actually is.
Which is why many authoritarian systems historically looked:
- immovable,
- permanent,
- inevitable —
right before abrupt transformation.
