Yes, but that does not make it a deliberate policy of killing people. It was what it was thought at the time as necessary to bring China in the modern age. One has to ask if without it China would be what it is today -- or perhaps some broken half-aggrarian society, more third-world than one of the world's economic powers.

Same way, as one has to ask if without Stalin's forced industrialization, USSR would be able to stand to the Nazis (and, if it could not, if Europe could). Besides the tragic human aspect, one has to see these kind of events with an impartial eye, just for their long term effects.