15–55 million deaths. Historian Mobo Gao claims that anti-Communist writers prefer to stretch the death toll number as high as possible while those sympathetic to the Chinese Revolution prefer to see the number as low as possible. Some specific estimates include the following (ranging from lowest to highest): In 2021, Yang Songlin (杨松林), researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council in Henan, estimated that roughly 2.6–4 million people died during the famine years. In 2016, Sun Jingxian (孙经先), scholar in applied mathematics and professor at Shandong University, concluded an estimate of 3.66 million "anomalous deaths" during the famine years. In 2007, Utsa Patnaik, a Marxian economist, estimated that 11 million deaths were caused due to the famine. In 2007, Daniel Houser, Barbara Sands, and Erte Xiao, writing in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, estimated that China suffered 15.4 million excess deaths during the famine, of which 69% (or 10.6 million) were attributable to effects stemming from national policies. In 1989, a research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences concluded that at least 15 million people died of malnutrition. In 1999, Shujie Yao (姚书杰), chair of economics at the Business School of Middlesex University, concluded that 18 million people perished due to the famine. In 1998, Li Chengrui (李成瑞), former Minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million deaths. His estimate was based on the 27 million deaths estimated by Ansley J. Coale, and the 17 million deaths estimated by Jiang Zhenghua (蒋正华). In 1987, Peng Xizhe (彭希哲), Professor of Population and Development at Fudan University, estimated 23 million excess deaths during the famine. In 1987, Judith Banister, Director of Global Demographics at the Conference Board, estimated 30 million excess deaths from 1958 to 1961. In 1996, Jasper Becker, a British journalist and author of Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, wrote that most estimates of the famine death toll range from 30 to 60 million. In 2005, Cao Shuji (曹树基), Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, estimated the death toll at 32.5 million. In 2012, Yang Jisheng, Xinhua News Agency senior journalist and author of Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962, concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born, so that "China's total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million." In response, historian Cormac Ó Gráda