Laogai , the abbreviation for
Láodòng
Gǎizào (勞動改造), which means "reform through labor," is a slogan of the
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
criminal justice systemCriminal justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, and sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts....
and has been used to refer to the use of
prison laborPenal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to several related situations: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, labour as a form of occupation of convicts, and labour camps used as a form of political intimidation.-...
and
prison farmA prison farm is a large correctional facility where hard labor convicts are put to economical use in a 'farm' , usually for manual labour, largely in open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying, etc...
s in the
People's Republic of ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
(PRC). It is estimated that in the last 50 years more than 50 million people have been sent to
laogai camps.
Laogai is distinguished from
laojiao, or re-education through labor, which is an administrative detention for a person who is not a criminal but has committed minor offenses, and is intended to reform offenders into law-abiding citizens. Persons detained under
laojiao are detained in facilities which are separate from the general prison system of
laogai. Both systems, however, involve
penal laborPenal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to several related situations: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, labour as a form of occupation of convicts, and labour camps used as a form of political intimidation.-...
.
History
During the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
s contained large numbers of people who were considered to be too critical of the government or "counter-revolutionary". Prisons were organized like factories. However, many people arrested for political or religious reasons were released in the late 1970s at the start of the
Deng XiaopingDeng Xiaoping was a prominent Chinese politician, statesman, theorist, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng became a reformer who led China towards market economics...
reforms.
In 1990 China abandoned the term
laogai and labelled the facilities as "prisons" instead. China's 1997 revised Criminal Procedure Law brought an end to official
laogai policy, but some prisons in the
Tibet Autonomous RegionThe Tibet Autonomous Region , also called Xizang Autonomous Region , is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China .Within the People's Republic of China, Tibet is identified with the Autonomous Region, which includes about half of...
and in
Qinghai' is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake. It borders Gansu on the northeast, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region on the northwest, Sichuan on the southeast, and Tibet Autonomous Region on the southwest.- History :Qinghai was only relatively recently made a province...
still practice forced labor and amount to a continuation of
laogai.
There are accusations that Chinese prisons produce products that are often sold in foreign countries, with the profits going to the PRC government. Products include everything from
green teaGreen tea is a type of tea made solely with the leaves of Camellia sinensis that has undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Green tea originates from China and has become associated with many cultures in Asia from Japan to the Middle East. Recently, it has become more widespread in the...
to industrial engines to
coalCoal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
dug from
minesMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash...
. These products, however, make up only an insignificant amount of
mainland ChinaMainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which are under the jurisdiction of the PRC but run on different economic and...
's export output and
gross domestic productThe gross domestic product or gross domestic income is a basic measure of a country's economic performance and is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year...
, according to researchers James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson, and it has been argued that the use of prison labor for manufacturing is not itself a violation of
human rightsHuman rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the...
and that most prisoners in Chinese prisons are there for what are generally regarded as
crimeCrime is the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority, via mechanisms such as police power, may ultimately prescribe a conviction...
s in the West. Western criticism of the
laogai centers not only on the export of products made by forced labor, but also on the claims of detainees being held for political or religious violations, such as leadership of unregistered Chinese House Churches. While the
laogai has attracted widespread criticism for the poor conditions in the prisons, Seymour and Anderson claim that reports are exaggerated, stating that "even at its worst, the laogai is not, as some have claimed, 'the Chinese equivalent of the Soviet gulag.'"
The downfall of
socialismSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
has reduced
revenueIn business, revenue or revenues is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Some companies also receive revenue from interest, dividends or royalties paid to them by other companies...
to local governments, increasing pressure for local governments to attempt to supplement their
incomeIncome is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
using prison labor. At the same time, prisoners do not make a good
workforceThe workforce is the labour pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, country, state, etc. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and implies those involved in...
, and the products produced by prison labor in China are of extremely low quality and have become unsalable on the open market in competition with products made by ordinary paid labor.
An insider's view from the 1950s to the 1990s is detailed in the books of
Harry WuHarry Wu is an activist for human rights in the People's Republic of China. Now a resident and citizen of the United States, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, for which he popularized the term laogai. In 1996 the Columbia Human Rights Law Review awarded Wu its second Award for Leadership...
, including
Troublemaker and
Laogai. He spent 19 years from 1960 to 1979 as a prisoner in these camps for criticizing the government while he was a young student in college. He almost starved to death, but eventually escaped to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In
Mao: The Unknown StoryMao: The Unknown Story , an eight hundred and thirty two page biography written by the husband and wife team, writer Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday, depicts Mao Zedong , paramount leader of the People's Republic of China and chairman of the Communist Party of China, as being responsible for...
,
Jung ChangJung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in mainland China....
and
Jon HallidayJon Halliday is a historian of Russia and was a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London.Halliday authored a biography of filmmaker Douglas Sirk and has written and edited seven other books. He and his wife, Jung Chang, live in Notting Hill, West London...
estimate that perhaps 27 million people died in prisons and labor camps during
Mao Tse-tung'sMao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary, political theorist and Communist leader. He led the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976...
rule.
Currently, the Laogai Research Foundation estimates that there are approximately 1,045
laogai facilities in China, containing an estimated 6.8 million detainees, although the actual number of detainees is uncertain.
Conditions in Laogai Camps
The conditions that the Laogai prisoners live in have been under scrutiny as the world learns more and more about them. The Chinese government has stated “Our economic theory holds that the human being is the most fundamental productive force. Except for those who must be exterminated physically out of political consideration, human beings must be utilized as productive forces, with submissiveness as the prerequisite. The Laogai system's fundamental policy is 'Forced Labor as a means, while Thought Reform is our basic aim.’” The execution of the communist philosophy ‘remold through labor’ has recently become very controversial.
Clothing
In contrast with Laojiao inmates, Laogai criminals are issued clothing. Depending on the locale and economic situation, the clothing can range significantly. Some prisoners may receive black or grey while others wear dark red or blue. Also depending on location, the clothing is available in different thicknesses. Commonly stamped on the uniforms are the Chinese characters ‘fan’ and ‘lao gai’ meaning ‘criminal’ and ‘remolding through labor’, respectively. Also issued to the prisoners are a pair of shoes made of rubber or plastic. These minimums do not meet the needs of the prisoners, who must purchase underclothes, socks, hats and jackets with their meager monthly earnings of 2.5-3 Yuan ($0.37-$0.44 American as of April 11, 2009). To make escapees easily identifiable, the Chinese have adopted the practice of shaving prisoners' heads. This practice is not traditionally Chinese; it is inherited from the Russian Gulag and/or Czarist Katorga. Jackets were rare in the Mao Era and were commonly more patches of old blankets than original cloth. Washing clothes was also rare, but clothing conditions have improved since the mid-Deng-Jiang Era.
Food
Food distribution has varied much through time similar to its variation across the “over 1,155 documented laogai” camps. One camp, near Beijing, distributes between 13.5 and 22.5 kg of food per person per month. This is about average. The 13.5-22.5 kg of food is sorghum and corn, which are ground into flour and made into bread or gruel. The prisoners of this camp also receive three ounces of cooking oil per month. Every two weeks, the prisoners receive “a special meal of pork broth soup and white flour steamed buns”. Important Chinese holidays such as New Year’s, National Day, and the Spring Festival are celebrated with meat dumplings, a special treat in an otherwise meatless diet.
Food is distributed by one person per squad, or about ten people. This prisoner, called the ‘zhiban’ or ‘duty prisoner’, delivers the food to the rest of his group in large bowls on a cart. This often involves pushing the cart a great distance to the place where the others are working. Each day prisoners receive gruel, bread, and a watery vegetable soup made from the cheapest vegetables available. Some camps have reported two meals a day while others allow three. Food is rationed according to rank and productive output, which provides motivation to work.
During the Mao Era, food was very scarce, partly because of a nationwide famine (1959-1962) but also because of the harsher rules. Since so little food was available, prisoners would scavenge anything they came across while working. There are documented cases of prisoners eating “field mice, crickets, locusts, toads, grapevine worms, grasshoppers, insect larvae and eggs, and poisonous snakes”. Also, many inmates would steal produce from the fields they worked on, smuggling vegetables back to their barracks. In
JiabiangouJiabiangou is a former farm labor camp located in the area under the administration of Jiuquan City in the northwestern desert region of Gansu Province. The camp was in use during the Anti-Rightist Movement in the years from 1957 to 1961...
,
Gansu' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It lies between Quinghai, Inner Mongolia, and the Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia to the north and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River passes the southern part of the province. It has a population of nearly 31...
, around 2,500 out of 3,000 prisoners died of starvation between 1960 and 1962, with some survivors resorting to
cannibalismCannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other humans.The word can be extended into zoology to mean any species consuming members of its own kind, and used outside of biological fields in a metaphorical sense: "Cannibalization" refers to the reuse of parts or ideas, such as...
.
Nutrition in the camps was a big problem, especially during the early years (early 1950’s-60’s) of the PRC (People’s Republic of China). Before the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) took control, hunger was rarely used to control prisoners. Early leaders of the CCP realized the power of withholding food from rebellious prisoners, and until recently, this practice was very common. Some camps in coastal regions have improved the quality and amount of food very much since the early nineties.
Living Quarters and Sanitation
The living quarters, commonly referred to as barracks in most Laogai literature, are relatively primitive. Most are floored with cement or wood but some are only straw and/or earth. The latrine is a bucket, and there is no furniture. The prisoners sleep on the floor in a space 30 cm wide. There are ten people per room. New prisoners are forced to sleep nearest to the latrine while more experienced ones sleep near the opposite wall.
Baths and showers are very rare, often not mentioned at all in memoirs. The only form of washing is the use of a water basin, which is only slightly less rare. This however, is ineffective since the same water is used for an entire squad. Basic essentials such as a toothbrush and toothpaste, toilet paper, soap and towels are not provided, prisoners must spend their wages to acquire them. There are documented cases of prisoners spreading manure, both human and animal, then eating immediately without being able to wash their hands.
The sleeping quarters are surrounded on all sides by a wall. This wall is about 20 feet high and topped with electrical fencing. There are also sentry towers on each corner. Outside this wall is forty feet of empty space, followed by another wall, similar to the first but larger.
Disease and Pests
The Laogai camps are infested with many types of pests. Bed bugs are so numerous that sometimes at night they move in swarms. This behavior has earned them the nickname Laogai nickname of tanks or ‘tanke’. They suck the blood of the prisoners, leaving little red welts all over their bodies. These welts itch, and severe cases have led to inmates scratching their skin raw. This leads to dangerous infections. Another common pest is lice. Lice infect the entire camp, so much so that the ‘convicts’ have been known to eat them to supplement their meager diet. No insecticide or pesticides are used in the camps; these bugs are allowed to run rampant in the population of prisoners. One prisoner, Zhang Xianliang, wrote that “the parasites on a single inmate’s underpants would be as numerous as the words on the front page of a newspaper.” He also noted fleas would be so numerous that they would “turn his quilt purplish black with their droppings.” Roundworms are also a common threat to the prisoners health, especially in laogai farms where human excrement is used as fertilizer.
Along with poor diet comes many diet related diseases. Beriberi, edema, and scurvy are the most common from lack of vitamins. Other health problems caused by the lack of healthy food include severe diarrhea or constipation from the lack of oil and fiber. These two are often left untreated and the continuous strain of twelve hours of manual labor weakens their immune system. Eventually, death follows many of these conditions. Two diseases that are rampant among the populations of these camps are tuberculosis and hepatitis. Highly contagious, these are also often left untreated until it is too late for their victims. Each morning, the cadre of the camp decides who is sick enough to stay in the barracks and miss the day of work. Many prisoners are forced to work when they are ill. Mental illness used to be very common during the Mao era when prisoners would spend two hours each evening being indoctrinated. The brainwashing that occurred over the amount of time people were imprisoned could be so intense that they were driven to insanity and in many cases suicide.
“Remold[ing] through labor”
It is the forced labor that defines Laogai prison camps. The following is a description of an average day in the prison camp Tuanhe Farm by Harry Wu, executive director of the LRC (Laogai Research Foundation). He spent nineteen years in a Laogai prison camp like this one.
- “Prisoners are roused from bed at 5:30 AM, and at 6:00 the zhiban from the kitchen wheels in a cart with tubs of corn gruel and cornbread…at 7:00 the company public security :cadre (captain) comes in, gathers all the prisoners together, and authorizes any sick prisoners to remain in the barracks. Once at the worksite, the captain delegates production :responsibilities…
- At lunchtime the zhiban arrives pulling a handcart with a large tub of vegetable soup, two hunks of cornbread for each prisoner, and a large tube of drinking water…after about thirty minutes, work is resumed until the company chief announces quitting time in the evening. Generally the prisoners return to the barracks at about 6:30 PM.
- Upon return it is once again a dinner of cornbread, corn gruel, and vegetable soup.
- At 7:30, two hour study period begins…
- At 9:30, no matter what the weather, all prisoners gather together outside the barracks for roll call and a speech from the captain. At around 10:00 everyone goes to bed.
- During the night no lights are allowed and no one is allowed to move about. One must remain in one’s assigned sleeping place and wait until 5:30 the next morning before getting up, :when the whole cycle begins again.”
Quota filling is a big part of the inmate’s lives in Laogai camps. Undershooting or overshooting the target productivity governs their quality of life. Not making the number may result in solitary confinement or loss of food privileges. Generally, food rations are cut by 10-20% if a worker fails to meet the standard. Some prisoners excel and are able to do more than what is required of them. They sometimes receive extra or better quality food. It has been argued that this extra food is not worth the extra calories burned to be more productive, so many prisoners choose to do the minimum with minimum effort, thereby saving as much energy as possible.
Working conditions in Laogai camps are sub-standard. “Investigators from the Laogai Research Foundation have confirmed sites where prisoners mine asbestos and other toxic chemicals with no protective gear, work with batteries and battery acid with no protection for their hands, tan hides while standing naked in vats filled three-feet deep with chemicals used for the softening of animal skins, and work in improperly run mining facilities where explosions and other accidents are a common occurrence.”
Career preparation has historically been used to justify forced labor prison systems around the world. In China, although this excuse was used, career preparation was minimum until recently. Following release, no one wants to dig ditches or spread manure for a living. Inmates who came into camps with trades and skills were often assigned to do those very jobs in the camps. Doctors, for example, were doctors in the camps. They received preferential treatment, often receiving amounts of food similar to the cadre and a bed. “Inmates rarely leave with any new skills unless the training fits the camp's enterprising needs.” More recently however, programs have been introduced to train prisoners in useful trades.
There are many types of Laogai camps, mainly farming, mining and factories. There are, according to the Chinese Government, “approximately 200 different kinds of Laogai products that are exported to international markets”. “A quarter of China’s tea is produced in Laogai camps; 60 percent of China’s rubber-vulcanizing chemicals are produced in a single Laogai camp in Shengyang…one of the largest steel-pipe factories in the country is a Laogai camp…” One Camp alone, Ziangride, harvests more than 22,000 metric tons of grain every year. Dulan County prisoners have planted over 400,000 trees.
The conditions in these camps are considered harsh by most cultures of the world. However, the Chinese government considers Laogai to be effective in controlling prisoners and furthering China’s economy. In the words of Mao Zedong, "The Laogai facilities are one of the violent component parts of the state machine. Laogai facilities of all levels are established as tools representing the interests of the proletariat and the people's masses and exercising dictatorship over a minority of hostile elements originating from exploiter classes." Activist Harry Wu has catalyzed the debate on the issue of Laogai, which is now becoming a much more visible issue worldwide.
Other Information
- In 2003, the word "laogai" entered the Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
. It entered the German Duden Die deutsche RechtschreibungThe Duden is a German dictionary, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880.Currently the Duden is in its 24th edition and published in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects like loan words, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, etc...
in 2005, and French and Italian dictionaries in 2006.
- In 2008, Harry Wu
Harry Wu is an activist for human rights in the People's Republic of China. Now a resident and citizen of the United States, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, for which he popularized the term laogai. In 1996 the Columbia Human Rights Law Review awarded Wu its second Award for Leadership...
opened the Laogai MuseumThe Laogai Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. which showcases human rights in the People's Republic of China, focusing particularly on the laogai, the Chinese prison system. The creation of the museum was spearheaded by Harry Wu, a well-known Chinese dissident who himself served 19 years in...
in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, calling it the first ever United States museum to directly address human rights in China.
- The cartoon Avatar: the Last Airbender
Avatar: The Last Airbender was a American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz...
, includes a secret brainwashing facility called Lake Laogai.
See also
- Penal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by locating them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
- Human rights in the People's Republic of China
Since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the human rights issue of China has come to the forefront. Multiple sources, including the U.S. State Department's annual People's Republic of China human rights reports, as well as studies from other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights...
- Gulag
The Gulag or GULAG was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and sometimes disappeared...
, the equivalent of laogai in Russia
- Reeducation camp
Reeducation camp is the official name given to the prison camps operated by the government of Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War. In such "reeducation camps", the government imprisoned several hundred thousand former military officers and government workers from the former South Vietnam...
, the equivalent of laogai in Viet Nam
External links