60 minutes rewind if the label says made in china what it doesn't say is made in china by prisoners
in forced labor camps prisoners whose only crime may have been speaking out against the system
preferring democracy to chinese communism and on many garments and many products that's the case
that's why congress wants to attach conditions before they agree to renew china's most favored
nation trade status or mfn as it's called president bush supports renewing china's
preferential status without conditions and informed congress that he's obtained a firm
high-level commitment that prison labor products won't be sold to the u.s are the chinese keeping
their word not from what we saw in china just a few weeks ago in a remote prison camp called
tangumu in the barren foothills of the tibetan plateau we took these pictures of prisoners
marching to work in blue uniforms many of these inmates are here for life in another camp in the
capital of qinghai province these prisoners are processing sheepskin and making leather
goods which as we discovered we'll end up in stores across america and around the world the
videotape was shot by harry wu former chinese political prisoner now living in california
he agreed at great personal risk since he's still a chinese citizen to go back with a hidden camera
to do what no outsider has ever done before take pictures inside chinese forced labor camps
you spent a total of how much time in prison 19 years 19 years harry wu's crime as a student he
spoke out against the soviet invasion of hungary not far from beijing wu managed to get us into the
ching ha prison farm where he spent four of his 19 years as a political prisoner and where he says he
was nearly starved to death entrance is strictly forbidden to anyone but labor camp personnel
but on this day as we drove 15 miles from one end of the camp to the other no one stopped us
we could never figure out why along the way we could see prisoners at work building a canal
with picks and shovels which is exactly what harry wu did when he was in this prison if
they catch you doing this what happens to you go back to the cam again you could go back to prison
of course they were putting you back again why are you doing it then because i think the world have
to realize there's a campus in china a prison camp system modeled on the now defunct soviet gulag
which experts say is made up of several thousand labor camps and millions of prisoners most
prisoners are forced to sign confessions before they're even tried and once convicted few have a
realistic chance to appeal their sentences human rights groups say brainwashing and torture are
rampant the lee brothers both former political prisoners now living in hong kong were released
just two months ago after former president jimmy carter intervened they'd been jailed
right after the chen on men's square movement required to do forced labor and they claim
once i sat on a stone bench with a table in front of me one policeman said on the other side
questioning me another stood behind me whenever i refused to admit something the one behind me would
strike me with an electric prod the shock made me tremble and i couldn't sit still i
fell on the ground it was unbearable how many political prisoners are there recent secret
chinese documents indicate that approximately one in 10 are in prison for political reasons
says china's scholar orville shell who was our consultant on this story we don't really know how
many prisoners there are let's take five million it's a totally arbitrary number and we can't
be much more definite but that means that there's a five hundred thousand political prisoners that's
a lot of political prisoners all prisoners including political prisoners are supposed to
reform themselves by doing forced labor reformed through labor as the chinese call it and this is
one of the prison factories where reform through labor takes place a plant on a busy street in
shanghai that makes hand tools from the front it looks like a normal factory but behind the facade
on a side street the barbed wire and the guard tower are unmistakable this man who is afraid
of being identified is a former high-ranking chinese police official now living in hong kong
who is familiar with the plant's operation who are the people who work in this plant
the majority are reformed through labor prisoners criminals labor reform criminals prisoners who are
there performing what we would call forced labor working against their will yes no doubt about that
yes no doubt whatever in beijing tung zhi guang who is vice minister of foreign economic relations
and trade the government ministry in charge of china's exports repeated to us the commitment
his government reputedly made to president bush no question but that the policy of the
government says that products made through forced labor will not be exported from this country
no under no conditions under no condition posing as a chinese-american businessman who wanted to
import hand tools harry wu met with officials at the shanghai lao dung machinery factory the prison
factory that makes the tolls who asked about purchasing some to sell in the united states
and secretly recorded the conversation remember it is illegal for forced labor goods from any country
to be sold in the u.s we would like to speak quite openly with you because in
the u.s congress recently made a big deal about the special nature of our kind of enterprises
what about the special nature of your enterprise our products are never exported directly we always
go through the import export company system as far as i know the us has a trade law that prevents
importation of products made by prison labor but we will be exporting indirectly but they'll be
able to find out this will give us trouble because the customs will find out not if we don't export
directly we invited the prison officials to another meeting in a shanghai hotel room
and secretly recorded our conversation harry wu introduced me as the president of the american
company interested in importing their hand tools i told them that the one thing that bothered me
was the reliability of their prison workforce given that these people are what you call reform
through labor we would call forced labor that they are reliable i mean that they turn out a
good quality product they told me there'd be no problem that their factory had been in business
for 41 years you know i have to be honest with you mr tong i i have spoken to officials
in shanghai of the shanghai lao dung machine plant which uses
forced labor they said they don't export directly they do it through export import companies
it's not to my knowledge in the first place no
present related manufacturing facilities has been never given the right to engage in foreign trade
they're not allowed i saw it with my own eyes it's not in some obscure part of the
country it's in the middle of shanghai prison officials told me that they want our business
they could export to the united states and there was a way to get around the
problem of the united states congress by doing it through an export-import contract company to me
it's inconceivable they're not supposed to but they're doing it
then they are violating the government policy if that is true but three weeks after we interviewed
vice minister tong the shanghai prison factory was still sending faxes to harry wu trying to
sell those prison-made goods we asked orville shell why that's so bad the question is who is
making the goods prisoners prisoners and who are the prisoners if you have people who are locked up
without trials who are locked up because somebody didn't like what they said what they thought what
religion they believed in what they wrote the kind of films they make the kinds of poetry they write
this i think at least most americans would find very offensive the story will continue after this
can you understand that americans don't want products made by these people under forced labor
exported to the united states as a matter of policy the chinese government never allows the
export of what you call forced labor product this may be china's official policy but we had
no trouble finding that numerous government-owned chinese enterprises are violating it with impunity
in the forced labor camp where they process sheepskin and leather harry wu asked the prison
manager about importing his forced labor products to the u.s no problem the plant boss told him and
then he gave harry wu the name and address of the import export firm in hong kong that could handle
the transaction so we went to hong kong and met the middlemen the winmate trading company
once again we pretended to be importers they told us a lot of these prison-made leather
goods are finished in korea and sold in the u.s so we invited them to a meeting that we secretly
videotaped this time our sound man ned hall posed as the company president the laborers themselves
are prisoners yes have you had experience with this kind of labor in the past have you found it
to be dependable yeah they have their own regulation and also we send our people to
to keep on checking the quality also yes once we report to them the quality is not up to standard
the prisoner will have the punishment or beating or some other thing did she say what i thought she
said that prisoners will be punished or beaten she does once we report to them the quality is not up
to standard the prisoner will have the punishment or beating or some other things do you think that
the government of china is capable of enforcing a policy of no forced labor exports absolutely
absolutely then how was it that the volvo company received a letter on behalf of china's labor camp
enterprises offering to provide quote a large number of criminals as very cheap labor to
foreign manufacturers how would you represent this letter to volvo as i say i do not know it's not my
knowledge i've never heard of this i'll show you the letter i'd be happy to show you the letter
we hear that you want to build plants in asia we would like you to build a plant
in china and we will be able to provide a reliable cheap workforce of prisoners
i don't know i this name is not even known to me you think this is a mistake
either mistake or the letter itself is in doubt then perhaps you can explain to me uh the 1989 law
book the law yearbook of china which is published by beijing's law publishing house said that the
in 1988 alone the value of products for export made by forced labor increased by 21 percent
now these are the figures published by your government by government publication it's in print
how would you respond to that
i never know it
you never know it now your position is what
you're the vice minister of milford of milford which is in charge of export and the import and
import and you don't know about it no it has never happened that comes from a government publication
government publication can make mistakes we pointed out to vice minister tong that
numerous government publications brag about the use of forced labor for export
one official prison reform journal says the labor reform enterprises throughout the country have
great potential for developing exports and earning foreign exchange minister it comes from your own
government publications as i say even those publications make mistakes you're an expert
on the chinese government i don't understand why they would lie to us to foreigners
about something that they boast about in these internal documents
the chinese have a long tradition the information they share among themselves within the country is
very different from what they expect to share with people outside namely you and i and they
they're become used to operating on this kind of dual system so they they don't imagine that you
will know these things vice minister tong says he can't understand why china's most favored nation
trade status should depend on issues he says have nothing to do with trade including human rights
arms control forced labor as we talked about so that china's continuing most favored nation trade
status should have nothing to do with human rights in this country no nothing might have
nothing to do with forced labor in this country no it is only about business business is business