D&B Profiles Wei Jingsheng’s Last Laogai: Hebei Province Nanbao Salt Works

Following years spent in the Laogai in Qinghai Province, Wei Jingsheng was transferred to the Hebei Province No. 1 Laogai Detachment near Tangshan, Hebei in 1990. He was kept in this camp until his brief release in 1993, and then returned to his old cell at Hebei No. 1 Laogai after his second arrest and "conviction" in 1995.

Hebei No. 1 Laogai Detachment was profiled by Asia Watch in a report titled Democracy Wall Prisoners, released in March 1993. At that time, this camp operated its commercial activities using the name Nanpu Xinsheng (New Life) Salt Farm.

"The Nanpu New Life Salt Farm is one of the largest - and for the government one of the most profitable - forced labor camps in China. According to an article published in July 1991 in the official journal Judicial Administration (Sifa Xingzheng), prisoners who were first made to reclaim vast tracts of salt-land from the ocean built the camp in 1956. The enterprise turned out to be highly lucrative:

 

Over the past 35 years, the prisoners have generated wealth for the state totaling almost three billion yuan [around US$575 million]. Tens of thousands of criminals have undergone reform-through-labor there, and in the process they have created the largest coastal salt farm in the whole of Asia. The camps have been awarded the glorious accolade of Advanced National Salt Industry Collective, been designated a No. 2 State-Level Enterprise and received a First-Level Collective Merit Award from the Ministry of Justice. It produces about a million tons of salt a year.

 

The article added that the camp also ran a chemical factory and carried out marine algae production. The camp commander, it said, was named Liu Shenxun and the Party Secretary was named Sun Guodong."*

There is considerable documentation on the commercial activities of this Laogai. The Hebei Nanpu Saltworks was also profiled in the Directory of China’s National Enterprises, a 12-volume bilingual series promoting national level manufacturers published in 1992.

"Hebei Nanpu Saltworks, located at the coast of the Bohai Sea and 50 kilometers south of Tangshan City, is the largest Saltworks in Asia.

 

"Covering an area of 300 square kilometers, the Saltworks possesses fixed assets of 195 million yuan [NOTE: US$23,353,000] and annual production capacity of 1.3 million tons of salt. There are 7,507 employees including 107 engineers and technicians as well as 1,886 administrators in the saltworks, which was promoted to be a National Second-Grade Enterprise in August 1987.

 

"Its leading products include salt and chemical-salt products such as sodium chloride, chlor-magnesium, bromine used in industry, etc. All its products’ quality have surmounted to international standards, among those, sodium chloride and industrial bromine have been up to advance international standards"**

By 1995, Hebei No. 1 Laogai Detachment was also known as Jile No. 1 Prison. It also began to use the commercial name ‘Nanbao Salt Works’ at about the same time. In November 1997, Wei Jingsheng was taken from his cell and put on a plane for the United States.

 

The D&B entry for this camp is reprinted below:

SOURCE: Directory of Key Manufacturing Companies in P.R. China 1995/96. p. 305. NOTE: The name for the Director as translated in the directory is incorrect: the name should read "Liu Shenxun."

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*"Nanpu yanchang qishi lu," ("The inspiring story of Nanpu"), Sifa-Xingzheng (Judicial Administration), July 1991, pp. 23-24. As cited in Democracy Wall Prisoners, Asia Watch, March 1993, p.6. Original italics

**Directory of China's National Enterprises, compiled by the Commission of Directing State Enterprise Management of the State Council. Beijing; China Reform Publishing House, Vol. 12. p.542.

 

 

 

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