It was a relatively minor genocide. Of course it was horrific and notable, but in terms of numbers not that huge. It was dwarfed for instance by the genocidal actions of Leopoldt in Belgium.
Most of the genocides of the 20th century were actually not by Germans, although many are not recognised. Why? Well they were official enemies! The truth is a lot of history is still pretty unknown generally.
Consider the mass murder in Indonesia in 1965, where at least a million were killed, or the genocide of East Timor, which killed a third of the population. Not very well known. Those were under the auspices of the USA and west in general. There are more, like the Mayans of Guatemala ... I learned about lot of these only recently
Really this was just a precursor to a century of genocide globally.
Probably because "recognition" of genocides is mostly a political instrument rather than a correction of historical record based on new proofs. The recognition depends mostly on the political relationship between the "recognizer" and the perpetrator. For example: The Armenian genocide: As long as Turkey is an ally of US, US fails to recognize any wrong doings and takes no action. The holocaust: Germany was not an ally of US at the time; US recognizes the genocide and takes action. The various french "activities" in algeria and africa in general: US fails to recognize anything. France is an sovereign (=they have nukes) ally. Al-Anfal "campaign" in Iraq: US fails to recognize the actions of Iraq (unofficial US ally against Iran at the time) but remembers a decade later when Saddam falls into disgrace and action is taken in 2003. Second Chechen war: Russia is not ally of US but it is too "sovereign" for any action to be taken.
There's a difference between responsibility for death and genocide. Mao looked to uplift his country, but through horrendously bad policy caused a famine that took the lives of tens of millions of Chinese. Partly that was due to ignorance, and yes partly due to willingly sacrificing lives of people for a 'greater good' by shifting resources away from agriculture towards industrialisation knowing it would lead to starvation, that leans towards genocide heavily but is not the same. It's different from planning and executing, deliberately, to kill large groups of people for the sake of removing them from the planet, or ethnic cleansing, doing the same but to a particular ethnic group.
I'm not saying Mao's consequences are any less bad or deserve less attention, not at all, but generally Mao's actions aren't considered genocide. That's purely a semantical argument, not a moral one.
Mao reduced resources going towards the affected population, shifting the resources to a different economic priority, leading to a man made catastrophe and loss of life.
Hitler expanded resources to the affected population to exterminate them specifically. The results are not much different but the definition is. If OP had asked about responsibility for death rather than genocides, your post would be quite fitting.
Other terms have been thought up since the Armenian genocide like democide (probably most fitting for Mao's famine) and mortacide.
Right. And many other deaths are overlooked. For example millions of Indians died in horrible famines which happened regularly under British rule. That stopped after Indian independence.
I think that this is because most other nations do not recognize the genocide they self committed (disclaimer: I am not German).
Here is incomplete list of other nations who have committed genocide recently: Japanese, Chinese, Turks, Russians, Pakistanis, Khmers, Hutus, British, Americans...
The British did similar things, including innovations like the concentration camp, but used more intermediaries. They didn't give speeches about extermination.
Ultimately it is about money. Germany has rebuked demands for reparations. Good for them. I can see reparations when you are within a generation or two and there is a chance of finding those directly affected by such actions, but when you four or more out all we should be after is acknowledgment if that.
The take away is, past governments have done things current governments find abhorrent. Times change, what is acceptable changes. However the biggest factor is the ability of people to prove events and get acknowledgment of that proof.
