I don’t think the line “a single bad harvest can reduce a family to malnourishment and starvation” is an accurate depiction of poverty China in 1978. Being poor didn’t mean you would starve, it did mean you had to toil in the fields all day long, you had almost nothing by way of worldly possessions, and generally had a crappy life.

The phrase people used to describe China’s old political deal was the “Iron Rice bowl”, which I think accurately depicted that China would take care of peoples basic needs, but provide basically nothing else.

The life expectancy stats are also misleading. China had already made twenty years of life expectancy gains by the 1980. Pro-market reforms and the health improvements probably contributed to economic growth more then economic growth contributed to health gains.
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/life/index.html

China from 1960 to 1988 made tremendous strides in all sorts of areas, but it didn’t stop thousands of people from risking their lives in Tienanmen square to support political freedom. I imagine if people thought doing something similar would work today they’d do it again.

Political liberties mean everything when you’re starving. People with political liberties don’t starve to death. The Great Leap Forward was a failure to have even a minimal level of government accountability.

Finally I don’t know who you read, but you’re hardly alone in thinking that China’s economic growth is a more worthy topic then their human rights violations.