Chinese dissident Harry Wu spent nearly two decades in Chinese prison camps called laogai. The geology professor-turned human rights activist recently spoke to Betsy Huang and explains why he thinks U.S. policy toward Beijing is severely lacking.
Betsy Huang: Do you think that attention on the laogai has waned? Is it no longer on the forefront of public consciousness as it was back in, say, 1995, after your return from your most recent trip to China?
Harry Wu: I don’t think the attention has decreased. For example, last year the Oxford Dictionary finally entered “laogai” as a word, which gives it official recognition.
Laogai is the tool of the dictatorship. Laogai is not simply like a prison in the United States, where you commit a crime and you are punished by being deprived of your freedom; it is a political system. Some believe that investing in trade with China is a way to peacefully and gradually change this totalitarian system. But these people want to dismiss the dark side. They say that the country is changing, so we can stop our containment policy and do something that is good for [China] and good for us.
I’m confused by this [notion]. During the Cold War, Western countries boycotted, sanctioned, and isolated the Soviet empire. In the end, we brought down the Berlin Wall. And when we heard about discrimination in South Africa, we boycotted the whole country. Today, Cuba is still under an embargo. I don’t understand why we single out China [for special treatment.]
If it were true that money can change the totalitarian regime, I would support that policy. That kind of peaceful evolution is good for everyone. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case. As we say, “do you think you can convince a tiger to become a vegetarian?”
BH: Why is it so difficult to obtain information on the laogai? There are people who’ve been released and “reformed.” Why aren’t more of these people speaking out and exposing the laogai system as you’ve tried to do?
HW: Human beings are very different, but they have one thing in common: life belongs to them only once. And this life is short. After the horrible ordeal in the labor camps, no one wants to repeat the experience, to talk about it. It’s not enjoyable. Everyone wants to forget about it. I survived, they say, so let me enjoy the rest of my life. This is understandable.
We don’t know how many laogai exist in China. We don’t know how many people were sent to the camps, and how many vanished in them. We don’t even know the location of the camps. These are “state secrets.” The reason why I was sentenced and put in the laogai for 15 years is that I wanted to “steal state secrets.” The laogai is top secret in China, just like the camps were once “top-secret” in Germany during the Nazi regime, just like the labor camps in Siberia were under Stalin’s rule.
But we have to know that each of those camps contained thousands of people who lost their lives and freedom. They’ve suffered, and their families are suffering. We have no right to say “sorry, it’s over, and we’re all fine now.”
BH: What do you say to the argument that the benefits of providing Chinese workers the jobs they sorely need outweigh the cost of human rights violations?
HW: The question is: What do the Chinese really need? Jobs? Money? Or freedom? If I’m a free man, I can make money. I can find a job. I don’t need the government to feed me. But I don’t have that freedom in China. There are no unions, no strikes. Cheap labor is everywhere—in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Africa. But cheap labor in China is also obedient, so this is a very good place to invest, if you have a good relationship with the government. This is why foreign companies who want to do business in China first seek out high-level government officials to become partners.
BH: How does raising the issue of human rights with China affect the cost of labor? Do you believe that foreign corporations avoid the subject of human rights because the cost of labor might go up if they pressured the Chinese government to raise standards?
HW: Chinese workers do benefit from foreign businesses, but this is only one side of the story. The other side is that it also benefits the government. Only a part of the profit goes to the people. This is why the Chinese government today has tremendous wealth. In this way, foreign businesses are giving the dying Communist system a blood transfusion. If the Soviets had the same business opportunities with the West as China does today, I don’t think the regime would have collapsed when it did.
