Jiangsu Nantong Knitting and Dyeing Mill: Listed in D&B Directory Was Profiled by Asia Watch In 1991

 

The Jiangsu Nantong Knitting and Dyeing Mill previously used the enterprise name the Jiangsu Nantong Xinsheng (New Life) Cotton Cloth Mill. It was under this name that the Laogai enterprise was profiled in an Asia Watch report in 1991. That report quoted Chinese government documents extensively about the camp’s financial success. The report is excerpted below:

"Compared with other enterprises, it is far more difficult for the reform-through-labor units to develop their economy, especially foreign-oriented economy. But this is by no means impossible. The New Life Cotton Cloth Mill of Nantong County, Jiangsu Province provides an eloquent example. Since 1983, when it started producing for export, it had by 1988 produced a cumulative output value of 180 million yuan, of which 110 million yuan worth was procured by the state for export resulting in foreign exchange earnings of US$28,510,000 10,000. Its products had been exported to seven countries, including Japan, the United States and West Germany. It has become a major foreign exchange earner among Jiangsu’s textile mills. For three years in a row, it was named an advanced unit in earning foreign exchange by the provincial people’s government. It was promoted to National Second Class State Owned Enterprise in 1988 as a unit of the country’s judicial administration.*

 

"….We stepped up the education of prisoners in foreign affairs discipline. We made it an explicit rule that whenever foreign businessmen come to the workshops to inspect product samples or quality, they must be accompanied by special personnel. The prison authorities would assign people to our mill and help with supervision. Prisoners are not allowed to have direct contact or talks with foreign businessmen, etc....

 

"For a Laogai enterprise to develop a foreign oriented economy, attention must not only be paid to economic matters, it is especially important to improve the quality of the prisoners. Over the last few years. our mill insisted on educating the prisoners in patriotism and national spirit, linking this with the reality of the development of a foreign oriented economy... Improvements in prisoners’ work skills guaranteed the quality of foreign trade products and a high-percentage of up-to-standard export items. This fully demonstrates that educating the prisoners ideologically, culturally and technically so as to change their thinking, improve their knowledge, and rid them of their bad habits, constitutes not only a basic measure for ‘reforming and cultivating people’ but also an important guarantee for a Laogai enterprise in its development of a foreign oriented economy."**

Many forced labor camps, including Nantong Xinsheng, which are located in the fast-growing regions of China have benefited greatly from the new economic policies. As Asia Watch states in its report, "[Documents] indicate that the areas of Chinese where the economic policy of ‘reform and opening to the outside world’ is most developed —coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Jiangsu and Fujian - are those most actively engaged in the production of prison made goods for export."***

 

Also included in the Asia Watch report is an article by an official of the Jiangsu Province Laogai Department, which states:

"Let us take Laogai production in Jiangsu Province as an example. It has grown an average annual rate of 18.6 percent since 1983. By 1987, the aggregate Laogai economy amounted to 334 million yuan [NOTE: US$40,000,000], 97.7 percent higher than the 1983 output value of 168.92 million yuan [NOTE: US$20,229,000]. The aggregate 1987 profit amounted to 54.48 million yuan, 127 percent or more than double, the 1983 profit of 24 million yuan. The growth of the commodity economy not only changed the rigid, single-product economic model; more important, it also brought about changes in people’s thinking."****

The D&B Directory for the camp is reprinted below:

SOURCE: Directory of Key Manufacturing Companies in P.R. China. p. 538.

 

The survey of Dun & Bradstreet found only four Jiangsu Laogai camps, representing less than 10% of the known Laogai facilities in that province.

The Xuzhou Forging and Pressing Equipment Manufactory, the top producing Jiangsu Laogai camp named in the D&B Directory, has a long history of doing business in the United States. In 1991, the E.W. Bliss Company in Michigan pled guilty to importing stamping presses from the Laogai camp. The company paid a $75,000 fine and exported its latest shipment of presses (valued at over $1 million) to unnamed companies in Mexico and Costa Rica. No effort was made to locate and confiscate other machines Bliss had imported and resold in the United States during the previous decade.

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*"Wo chang fazhan waixiangxing jingji de zuofa" in Laogai Laojiao Lilum Yanjiu (Theoretical Studies on Laogai and Laojiao), No. 3, 1990, pp. 38-41. As cited in Prison Labor in China, News from Asia Watch report, April 19, 1991, p.16.

**Ibid, p.20.

***Prison Labor in China News from Asia Watch report, April 19, 1991, p.3.

****"Laogai qiye fazhan waixiangxing jingji de sikao," Laogai Laojiao Lilun Yanjiu (Theoretical Studies in Laogai and Laojiao), No 1, 1989, pp. 46-50. As cited in Prison Labor in China, News from Asia Watch report, April 19, 1991, p.8. Calculations noted are based on RMB8.35=US$1 ratio.

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