Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City of old. Apolitical service organizations such as the International Red Cross have routinely been denied access to PRC prison camps and prison camp inmates who have smuggled out frank, unofficial accounts of their incarceration have only been published overseas, and often had their sentences extended as a result.
Presenting extensive analysis of literary and biographical accounts, this illuminating book provides a window to the...
Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City o...
China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network--a frightening, mostly hidden realm known since 1951 as the laogai system. This book, the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date, draws from a wide range of primary sources, including many compelling literary documents, to illuminate life inside China's prison camps. Focusing mainly on the second half of the twentieth century, Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu outline the evolution of the laogai system, construct a vivid picture of prisoners' lives from arrest and...
China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network--a frightening, mostly hidden realm k...