Chain Gang Capitalism China’s Prison System Attacked, But U.S. Prisoners Have To Tote The Load, Too

Horror stories are surfacing anew about the Chinese prison labor system and the sale of its products in the United States. But consider what is happening to the 64,000 U.S. convicts in the Florida prison system:

Prisoners are required to work - or face punishment. Most inmates, even ones digging ditches on chain gangs, are paid nothing. Moreover, some of the products they make, such as boots and license plates, are exported to foreign countries.

Therein lies a question: Because inmates in many U.S. prisons are obliged to work, do Americans have the right to condemn China’s prison labor practices?

The question arises because China’s “reform through labor” penal system, known in Chinese as laogai, is becoming a hot issue in Congress and the media amid the mounting debate over whether Beijing should be allowed to retain its trading privileges.

Senate and House committees held hearings May 21 and 22 on allegations that goods made in Chinese prisons are being imported into the United States in violation of U.S. law and a U.S.-China agreement.

Among those offering testimony about how easy it is to buy convict-made goods was Harry Wu, a former inmate laborer who has gained worldwide fame for returning to China to document the nation’s “prison economy.” An ABC “Nightline” program broadcast the night after the hearing featured videotape from another witness indicating that binder clips were being made in a Chinese women’s prison for a U.S. office-supplies company.

All of this is generating potent ammunition for critics of U.S. trade with China, who contend that Beijing is profiting from the toil of people railroaded into working cruelly long hours under appalling conditions. TV ads being readied by the Family Research Council, a group seeking to overturn China’s most-favored-nation trade status, accuse Beijing of employing “slave labor.”

But some academic experts call this argument a classic example of hyping an issue to advance a political agenda.

“Harry Wu and others have tried to stir up a great controversy about how goods made by forced labor are flooding into our market,” said James Feinerman, a professor of Asian Legal Studies at Georgetown University. “But in fact, it’s only a tiny fraction of all Chinese goods. And it seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy for us to get on our high horse about China making its prisoners work, given the fact that we do the same thing with our prisoners.”

The importation of goods made in Chinese prisons, while against U.S. law, should be a “non-issue because the amounts are so small,” agreed James Seymour, a senior research scholar at Columbia University whose book on Chinese prisons is scheduled to be published shortly.

Although the precise amount is impossible to determine, Seymour’s book cites Chinese economic data indicating that the output of Chinese prisons constitutes less than one-fifth of 1 percent of total Chinese production.

The U.S. federal prison system, and many state prison systems, require all able-bodied inmates to work, often in tasks that are designed to save taxpayers money, such as cleaning up highways, painting public buildings or making office furniture.

Those who refuse typically are deprived of privileges or sent to higher-security institutions.

Pay is far below minimum wage - 12 cents to $1.15 an hour for federal inmates, and less than that in many state systems. So their products usually are barred from sale except to government agencies.

But ironically, while the law prohibits importing prison-made goods and restricts their sale across state lines, there is no law barring their export.

But in China the case of Chen Pokong, a 33-year-old visiting economics scholar at Columbia who spent five years as an inmate, illustrates what many experts find most troubling about the penal system - the extensively documented evidence that prisoners often are treated brutally.

Chen, who said he was sentenced in 1989 for helping to lead a student democracy movement in the southern province of Guangdong, said he spent two years in one facility.

“You can argue that it works,” he said.

“They have very low rates of recidivism. Who are we to argue with their choices?”