As war ravaged the Korean Peninsula in the early 1950s, China suffered fifteen times the casualties and missing-in-action losses of their American counterparts, according to some U.S. and South Korean estimates. While the "human waves" sent to the front lines by Mao Zedong ultimately saved the communist regime in North Korea, the carnage was devastating and the humiliation injurious.
To put China on a more equal footing with the industrialized West, Chairman Mao instituted the "Great Leap Forward" by the late 1950s, seeking the radical transformation of a dirt-poor agricultural society. The measures enacted led a nation of peasants to melt their pots and pans in backyard furnaces in futile attempts to produce steel. The consequent "pig iron" skillets were useless and, accompanied with the implementation of collective communal kitchens and other sweeping measures to transform production, the result was roughly 30 million deaths from starvation – though some estimates suggest the toll was even higher.
During this same period, U.S. Steel grew into a global industrial kingpin, becoming the world's first billion dollar company in 1901. J.P. Morgan's merger of several leading steel manufacturers, including the Carnegie Steel Corporation, would help the United States win both World Wars I and II and generate a global reputation as an iconic American institution.
