CA Governor Jerry Brown: If U.S. wants to be successful, we should follow the lead of China's communist leader, President Xi Jinping

The camps are called “laogai,” a contraction of “láodòng g?izào,” which means “reform through labor.” They were conceived under Mao; unlike Stalin’s gulags, they never closed — though the CCP has tried to abolish the name “laogai.” In the Nineties, it redesignated the camps “prisons.” The conditions, though, don’t seem to have changed.

Our picture of life in the laogai is murky, but here’s what has been reported: The prisoners are given uniforms and shoes. They have to purchase their own socks, underwear, and jackets. There are no showers, no baths, and no beds. Prisoners sleep on the floor, in spaces less than a foot wide. They work 15-hour days, followed by two hours of evening indoctrination; at night they’re not allowed to move from their sleeping-spots till 5:30 rolls around, when they’re woken for another day of hard labor. Fleas, bedbugs, and parasites are ubiquitous. The prisoners starve on meager supplies of bread, gruel, and vegetable soup. Once every two weeks they get a meal of pork broth. The camps currently billet between 3 and 5 million convicts — real criminals along with thought criminals guilty of opposing Communism, promoting freedom, or practicing religion — though the process doesn’t wait on conviction; Chinese law permits the police to hold anyone for four years before judicial proceedings. At any given time — according to the Laogai Research Foundation — 500,000 Chinese citizens are in “arbitrary detention.” If a prisoner does get a hearing, he enters a legal system controlled, capriciously, by the Communist Party.

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“ . . . 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.” And that work finds its way into American and European stores. A quick Internet search will yield photos of notes slipped into Chinese products on sale everywhere from Kmart to Saks. Notes begging for help, signed by Chinese slaves. One that turned up in Northern Ireland says, “We work 15 hours every day and eat food that wouldn’t even be fed to pigs and dogs.” It was written in Chinese; one that turned up in Oregon was written in English. “People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement. . . . Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others.” The CCPG is the Chinese Communist Party Government; the writer of that note identifies himself as a worker in the Masanjia labor camp. Former Masanjia inmates have been interviewed by the New York Times. They described “frequent beating, days of sleep deprivation, and prisoners chained up in painful positions for weeks on end.” One told the Times, “Sometime the guards would drag me around by my hair or apply electric batons to my skin for so long the smell of burning flesh would fill the room.” Another said, “I still can’t forget the pleas and howling.” About half of Masanjia’s inmates are in for refusing to renounce their religion — mostly followers of Falun Gong and Christians.

The State Department on Tuesday listed China as one of the countries with the worst records on sex trafficking and forced labor, a downgraded designation that Beijing labeled irresponsible and which could complicate Washington’s efforts to further isolate North Korea over its nuclear weapons. China was dropped one notch on a watch list to Tier 3, the lowest ranking, in the State Department’s annual human trafficking report. The report said China had made no meaningful efforts to curb forced labor and human trafficking, and suggested the country had backslid by decreasing law enforcement efforts. Tier 3 is reserved for countries deemed not to meet minimum standards. Theoretically, the rating could result in sanctions, although presidents often waive that step. In remarks introducing the report, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China’s downgrade was partly due to its use of North Korean workers whose salaries are remitted directly to the government in Pyongyang. He said North Korea earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year in hard currency, despite international sanctions, from the earnings of 50,000 to 80,000 laborers forced to work overseas in mining, construction and food services. Most work either in Russia or China, he said.

What's a little slave labor between rogue nations?

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