I don't mean to say that Mao is morally neutral or good or anything. I mean to remind people that the vast majority of suffering and death in the world is banal, and no one cares about it, because it's business as usual. Personally, I find Mao's management to be morally bad, because one wielding such great power must be compared not to the alternative but to what they could reasonably have done (which is better).

Here is the source : https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/

For a more concise analysis : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jNJxQNxQKd3MbtAzn2Ji...

As you can see, the death rate in China was consistently lower than in India, and while it got close during the "Great Leap Forwards", China pulled ahead even farther once it was completed.