BOOK REVIEWS

James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson: New Ghosts, Old Ghosts — Prisons and Labor in China

Studies on the Chinese penal system of “reform through work” (laogai), which is often compared to the Soviet gulag, have suffered up until now from a lack of precision and reliability. James Seymour and Richard Anderson have nevertheless succeeded in producing an exemplary book on this serious and particularly controversial question—one that is carefully kept under wraps by the Chinese authorities. For very little was really known as to the number of prisoners and labour camps in China, or about the role played by this system in the national economy—this at a time when the question of human rights has become an essential element in diplomatic relations between China and the United States.

Based on the analysis of internal documents, as well as on interviews with former prisoners and lawyers (among them a former judge from Xinjiang), “New Ghosts, Old Ghosts” is a model of serious, rigorous research work, and irreproachably argued. More than four hundred references, regrouped in the endnotes; copious annexes and a complete bibliography (most of which is made up of Chinese books); these bear witness to the authors’ precision in presenting their information while maintaining great clarity of style. Their sources are remarkably up-to-date, since we are talking of sources drawn mainly from the 1990s, with the data taken into account extending into 1997.

The book rests on the study of three significant provinces in the Chinese laogai: Gansu, Xinjiang and Qinghai. This is not a description of prison conditions, nor a collection of individual cases, nor a balancing of various statistical estimates. Rather it is a real in-depth analysis of the structure of prison institutions, of the administration of the laogai, and of its economic role. There are maps showing the precise location of the camps (though this is a secret that has been particularly well guarded by the authorities); there are tables of data on the number of convictions, of figures for the prison population; there are statistics showing the volume of production from the forced labour farms. In short, as the authors promise, “this is a strictly empirical study” (p. 9). They also provide very precise figures for the population of the laogai in China’s North-West, distributed among 1,249 camps: they put the numbers at 33,000 in Gansu (p. 42), 85,000 in Xinjiang (p. 116), and 23,000 in Qing hai (p. 174).

The chapter on Xinjiang is the most comprehensive (80 pages as against 12 and 50 respectively on Gansu and Qinghai) and it discloses in depth the dual system of detention that is imposed in the province. It is partly run by the Justice Department, and partly by the “bingtuan” (agricultural farms that are paramilitary, though independent of the army [p. 51]), some of which include prison camps. The political prisoners, Uighurs in particular, are kept in prisons, so that they don’t “pollute” prisoners on the path to reform (p. 122).

The question of economic production in the camps of the laogai is treated separately for the three provinces: the authors show that the system is not only unproductive (less than 0.1% of the regional production in Gansu (p. 43), and Xinjiang [p. 105]), but does not even achieve self-sufficiency. “The issue most central to the economy within the loagai is having enough to eat” (p. 96).” That does not mean, however, that the prisoners do not work: quite the opposite. In Xinjiang in particular, the working day in summer is 15 hours, seven days out of seven. Working conditions in the mines (including the uranium mines) are appalling. Physical violence, corruption among the guards, insufficient food, a harsh climate (above 40°c in summer, and minus 30° in winter) make life a daily hell.

In the light of James Seymour and Richard Anderson’s conclusions, one may swiftly perceive that the assertions of the system’s main critic, the well-known dissident Harry Wu (who has put China in the dock of American political opinion), appear fantastic and exaggerated in the main. The total number of prisoners is apparently around 2 million, whereas Harry Wu talks of 6 to 8 million people—the Chinese authorities’ official figure being 1.3 million. However, Being a former Amnesty International leader, James Seymour can hardly be accused of “complaisance” towards the Chinese regime. The picture he paints of the penal system (institutionalised corruption, almost no educational facilities, significant rate of recidivism,etc.) runs directly counter to the results trumpeted by the regime’s propaganda machine. The authors remind us that they seek “not to please nor offend, but to inform and set the record straight (p. 10).”

The distinguishing features of the labour camp system in China’s Northwest, as drawn here, show us an institution that is no longer related to Maoist times, but that is still excessively brutal. Half its population is made up of prisoners from the region, and the other half of prisoners transferred from different regions. The inmates are almost exclusively common law prisoners (p. 56), working in agricultural camps (p. 103). At the end of their terms they are free to leave the province, even though the lack of alternatives (for those without residential permit, work or family) still leads half the released prisoners to stay on working in or for their original camp (liuchang jiuye) (p. 196).

The authors conclude that what gives the Chinese prison system its peculiar stamp is not its size, nor its economic role, but the iniquity of the procedures that bring convicts into it—the arbitrary power of the judges, the unavailability of legal counsel, the inconsistency of sentencing—and the harshness of prison conditions—forced labour, inadequate food, generalised corruption of the system, physical violence and torture (p. 233).

In fact, when all is said and done, the only limit to this book is that which the authors set themselves: only to deal with the provinces of the North-West. For the very comprehensiveness of the information offered on these three provinces enables us to measure the extent of our ignorance of the situation in the rest of China. New Ghosts, Old Ghosts is now the indispensable work of reference on the Chinese laogai.