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Mrs Logan FED
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goods.
HARRY WU AND LAU SHAN-CHING
1.
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Hanna Sf. Logan 14/3
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1613 This Bunker
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I attended a meeting in SOAS organised by Philip Baker on China's labour camps and the export of prison made goods. The main presenter was Harry Wu, himself a former inmate of the camps for 19 years and now devoting himself to researching and publicising them. Lau Shan-ching, who at present seems to be on an international tour, was also present and spoke briefly. Wu gave some fascinating background, detailed below. He is clearly a man with a mission, to expose the labour camp system in China, and sets about doing so at considerable risk to himself. But in his view "there are no heroes in the Chinese camps only survivors" which is how he says he sees himself. His presentation is clear and convincing. He is publishing a book summarising his researches this month ("Laogai the Chinese Gulag"). Much of the publicity he has got has centred on the question of the export of prison made goods to the United States and so far the US has banned some 70 Chinese products on these grounds. He says that there must also be such goods entering this country, though he has not yet tried to document it. This is a question that human rights groups here may seek to make more of following the success in the United States. I attach a copy of Lau Shan-ching's itinerary in this country. He did not say much other than a few remarks about the conditions he experienced and plea for more attention to be given to the plight of one of his fellow inmates, Wang Xizhe.
2. We were first shown excerpts from the television films that Harry Wu made for US television last year about the camps and especially the export of goods made in the camps to the United States. Some of this has already been shown on British TV. He has some extraordinary footage of the camps which he shot clandestinely while posing as a variety of characters, mainly US entrepreneurs interested in buying the products of some of the camps. There was an interview with Tong Zhiguang, Vice Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, during which Tong was confronted with incontrovertible evidence of the practice and which he had great difficulty in accounting for. A particularly chilling moment was during discussions with an intermediary company in Hong Kong. expressed concern about the quality of the products (sheepskins from a camp in Qinghai in this case) only to reassured by one of his interlocutors that if there was any slippage in quality those responsible would be punished and beaten.
Wu
3. Wu then showed slides of various camps throughout China that he had taken on his trips last year and gave a commentary. According to him there are three main groups of detainees in the labour reform (laogai) camps: those who have been convicted (usually after trail of some kind) and sentenced to labour reform (ie through the judicial process), those who have been sentenced administratively (ie without trial) to labour reeducation (laodong jiaoyu), and those who have ben affected by forced job placement. this last category is made up of former inmates of the camps who have been forced to remain in the camps after the completion of
UNCLASSIFIED
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