Introduction to the 1997-1998 Laogai

The Laogai—China’s vast network of forced labor camps—is not a dying or insignificant institution as some have suggested. On the contrary, the Chinese government continues to use this Gulag system as a major tool of suppression of dissent and a mechanism for sustaining absolute control over China’s population.

In 1992, the Laogai Research Foundation issued its first Laogai Handbook. That same year, the Chinese government issued its "White Paper" on criminal reform. This was the first time officials of the People’s Republic of China felt compelled to offer a defense of the Laogai system, and its dual role of thought reform and production. But, as an effort to inform the world about the Laogai, the White Paper failed in two critical areas—truth and completeness. Questions as to the location, number, and manufacturing roles of the prisons, reform-through-education detachments, jails, and detention centers remain unanswered.

This Laogai Handbook, now in its sixth edition, remains the world’s only source of independent documentation of the Laogai system, and serves as part of the Laogai Research Foundation’s continued efforts to shed light on this system the Chinese government most wants to remain shrouded in secrecy. This edition of the Handbook identifies over 1,200 camps by name and location, with continued additions as to the products manufactured at those camps and the extent of its foreign and domestic trade, as well as the inclusion of new information on political and religious prisoners held in camps across China. We have removed the population statistic column from some of the entries in the current edition of the Handbook, and moved confirmable population information to the "Remarks" section. Some of the entries still include population ranges for certain camps. While the question of population of the Laogai is one which receives the most international attention, ascertaining the population of Laogai camps is unfortunately an imprecise exercise. Population information is guarded secret in most parts of China, and camp population also fluctuate greatly with periodic anti-crime campaigns. We will continue to update the online Handbook with the most recent information on population, production and conditions in an effort to provide the most comprehensive information possible.

The Handbook does not include information on the detention centers in China. These detention centers constitute some of the areas of the gravest human rights abuses against Chinese citizens, including poor conditions and sanitation, torture and forced labor. The Handbook also does not cover psychiatric institutions that are reported to hold political prisoners.

These past years have witnessed tremendous alterations in China. But as we hear of economic progress and social change, reports of continued human rights violations and arbitrary abuse of power also seep into the picture. We cannot disregard the plight of those in the Laogai, forced to work under inhumane conditions, subject to attempted political indoctrination and physical abuse, their sentences extended for unintelligible reasons.

Nor can we disregard the patently illegal export of products made with forced labor. The exploitation of forced labor in the Laogai has remained an integral part of China’s modernization drive. The Laogai itself has benefited greatly form the opening of China to international commerce and access to hard currency through the export of its products: everything from socks to diesel engines, raw cotton to processed graphite.

We invite you to read the Laogai Handbook carefully—to look over the information that reaffirms the dual reform and production roles of the Laogai and which prove the unbroken continuity of this system, despite superficial semantic changes. Then we ask you to think of the countless men and women who suffer in the Laogai today, as the trade continues and the Laogai grows. Only the attention of the world can bring an end to that suffering.

Harry Wu

Executive Director