Harry Wu survived China's 'Laogai,' fights for human rights
Read brief report on lecture.
Harry Wu and the
'Laogai'
September 16, 2002
"Lao gai," from two Chinese characters that mean "labor reform," signifies the efforts of the People's Republic of China to use labor to reform individuals like Harry Wu. He spent 19 years in China's version of the "Gulag," and remains under a 15-year sentence until 2010. ("The Communist Party always has you. I left a small cave, but I remain in a big cave.")
Born into a prosperous family, at age 20 Wu was captain of his university baseball team. But in 1957, when the Party virtually forced people to express themselves as part of an entrapment campaign entitled, "Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom and One Hundred Schools of Thought Contend," he finally declared that the Red Army was wrong to invade Hungary the previous year, and that members of the Communist Party should not treat non-members as second class citizens.
Because of those two statements -- plus the fact that he came from the "bourgeoisie" and, after enrolling at the Jesuit High School of Saint Francis, had converted to Catholicism ("In China, that's a big problem") -- he was labelled a counter revolutionary rightist.
Overnight he became a non-person, someone to be denounced by friends and family. His mother avoided taking part in this the only way she could -- by committing suicide -- something Wu didn't learn of until several years later.
Cast into the "Laogai," he watched fellow prisoners being executed as examples ("They called it 'killing the chicken to scare the monkey'") and learned how to catch rats and frogs to survive.
"Step by step," he said, heaving a sigh, "I reduced myself to a beast."
But even the Communist Party changes its policies. Released from the Laogai in 1979, Harry Wu came to America in 1985. Once more he needed his survival instincts, arriving with $40 to his name, sleeping on the streets for a time, and then taking a $2.25 per hour job making donuts at night, while serving a fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley during the day. Despite the hardships, which were nothing compared to those he had experienced in China, he had the chance to start a new life.
Yet, he found, "I cannot turn my back on those people who remain in China, or who disappeared into the labor camps." Posing as a policeman, a businessman, a prisoner's relative, he returned to the Laogai repeatedly with hidden cameras, inevitably to be imprisoned again.
By now, however, he was a U.S. citizen and was soon released -- with the warning not to return while he was under sentence. This was a new sentence, for "revealing state secrets," after he testified before the U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, and the United Nations. He also received "a new title" from the Chinese authorities as "troublemaker," one he adopted for his second book. "I appreciate that. It is a good title," Wu said, smiling. "I make trouble for them."
Today China has changed tremendously, he said. But, like a bird, a country needs "two wings to fly upward" -- a good economy and a good government -- and China is trying to do it with only the first, courting the free market but continuing to deny its citizens a role in government. "Do you think with only one wing the bird can fly upward?" Wu asked rhetorically.
"Am I optimistic? That depends on how long you're talking about." China's people may gain their freedom in 100 years. "But in the next 5, 10, even 20 years? I'll be honest. I'm very pessimistic."
Wu argues against isolating China. When an American goes there, he said, "you serve as a drop of ink on the paper. Many drops of ink on the paper can change the color of the paper." But he also argues against helping the government keep a dying Communist system going in China.
In closing, Wu asked his largely student audience to do two things: First: "Help me. Use 'Laogai' in your writing, your reports. I want to see the word in the Oxford Dictionary (just like 'Gulag' is)." Second: "Please join the discussion and the argument. Do you agree with the (U.S.) engagement policy?" Indicating that he does not agree, he added, "I see that people are telling me it is possible to change the tiger into a vegetarian."