The world press has not been nearly as tough on Chinese communism as it was on the Soviet variety, asserts Wu, the American human rights campaigner. Although Western reporters have gained increasing access to Chinese society, he says, they have been reluctant to ask Chinese authorities about the Laogai--China's gulag. They have failed to ask the most basic questions: How many labor camps are there? How many prisoners are in them? How many have died? And what products are made in the camps?

As a young man, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese camps before emigrating to the United States in 1985 and becoming a citizen. His own efforts to investigate the system led to his imprisonment for two months in 1995, an event that generated intense international concern.

The forced labor camps, he contends, are "an integral part of the national economy." According to Wu, 60 percent of China's rubber-vulcanizing chemicals are produced in a Laogai camp in Shenyang city; one of the largest exporters of hand tools is a camp in Shanghai, and one-third of China's tea is produced in Laogai camps. Recently, he adds, it came to light that auto parts made in the Beijing Laogai were being used in a joint venture with the Chrysler Corporation to build Jeeps in Beijing.

The world news media have also paid little attention to what is happening in the countryside, where 80 percent of China's 1.2 billion people live. "Reporters have so far concentrated on trends within the major cities," Wu says, "but it is in the countryside that the future of China will be determined."