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Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods
In 2012, an Oregon mother named Julie Keith opened up a package of Halloween decorations. The cheap foam headstones had been five dollars at Kmart, too good a deal to pass up. But when she opened the box, something shocking fell out: an SOS letter, handwritten in broken English.
“Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, Sun Yi, was a mild-mannered Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, forced into grueling labor for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to “reeducate,” carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day.
In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him, including the persecuted Uyghur minority group whose abuse and exploitation is rapidly gathering steam. What she reveals is a closely guarded network of laogai—forced labor camps—that power the rapid pace of American consumerism. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reportage, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s cheap goods and shares what is ultimately a call to action—urging us to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize.
“Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, Sun Yi, was a mild-mannered Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, forced into grueling labor for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to “reeducate,” carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day.
In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him, including the persecuted Uyghur minority group whose abuse and exploitation is rapidly gathering steam. What she reveals is a closely guarded network of laogai—forced labor camps—that power the rapid pace of American consumerism. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reportage, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s cheap goods and shares what is ultimately a call to action—urging us to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published February 2, 2021
262 people are currently reading
9773 people want to read
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March 23, 2021
In our quest to read more non-fiction, Marialyce and I settled on this book, and it was one that opened our eyes and caused us to examine our consumer habits.
In 2012 a woman in Oregon opened up a Halloween decoration purchased at K-Mart when a slip of paper fell to the floor. On it was written an appeal for help from Soon-Yi, a prisoner in China. The woman contacted various human rights agencies as well as the press and went public.
The author followed Sun Yi, an educated man imprisoned for his religious beliefs. It was difficult to read a first-hand account of what happened to him and his fellow inmates. Most of us know of the human rights abuses in China but few of us know how truly horrific they are. The inmates endure unspeakable torture worse than we can imagine, and forced to work 15-20 hours a day. Why? So we can buy cheap décor, toys, clothing, and other consumer goods.
As horrendous as this is, China also sells the organs of prisoners for a tidy profit. Their execution dates eerily match up to when an organ is needed.
China’s Communist Party is to blame, of course, but so are we every time we choose to buy, and buy cheap. I’m fortunate in that, when possible, I can choose to spend my money wisely in small businesses with ethical purchasing practices. But for most, if not all, Americans it’s nearly impossible to avoid items made in China, and impossible to know if what we buy is made in the labor camps.
No U.S. company who has manufacturing plants in China, including well-known brands, can ensure their goods are made without prison labor. Chinese manufactures believe they have little choice in using forced labor in order to keep up with the consumer demand for cheap products. They would be forced out of business if they raised their prices. The only way to stop this is lowering our demand.
There are U.S. laws enacted to stop the flow of goods made by forced labor, but they are worthless words on paper. The only thing that will stop it is for us to stop demanding cheap goods. Having independent 3rd party inspections would help but it’s doubtful it would have a lasting impact because of China’s lack of transparency and a company’s habit of simply changing their name when sanctioned.
The author ends the book with a list of questions to ask before we purchase something which basically boils down to:
do I truly need this, or would something I own work just as well? Do I need it enough to be willing to pay more for it? If I buy it how often would I use it? Would I be willing to get rid of three things if I do buy it?
If we are honest with ourselves, we all have our weaknesses, whether it’s electronics, home décor, fashion, small cheap toys /stocking stuffers, and the like. My husband and I have made a conscious effort to not buy more STUFF, and if we do, something needs to leave our house. Our primary motivation was to simplify our lives, but now we have an even more compelling reason to buy less and buy responsibly.
According to one study, consumers wouldn’t buy something if told it was made in a labor camp. But the effect went away in thirty minutes. Our brain’s pleasure center lights up when we see something on sale or for less money than we would expect to pay. The solution is to not shop for entertainment or buy simply because something is cheap.
Our consumerist society is causing untold suffering and torture worse than anything we can imagine. We can no longer claim innocence and ignorance as an excuse.
Thanks to my friend Jenna for putting this book on my radar!
Our duo reviews can be found at https://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpres...
In 2012 a woman in Oregon opened up a Halloween decoration purchased at K-Mart when a slip of paper fell to the floor. On it was written an appeal for help from Soon-Yi, a prisoner in China. The woman contacted various human rights agencies as well as the press and went public.
The author followed Sun Yi, an educated man imprisoned for his religious beliefs. It was difficult to read a first-hand account of what happened to him and his fellow inmates. Most of us know of the human rights abuses in China but few of us know how truly horrific they are. The inmates endure unspeakable torture worse than we can imagine, and forced to work 15-20 hours a day. Why? So we can buy cheap décor, toys, clothing, and other consumer goods.
As horrendous as this is, China also sells the organs of prisoners for a tidy profit. Their execution dates eerily match up to when an organ is needed.
China’s Communist Party is to blame, of course, but so are we every time we choose to buy, and buy cheap. I’m fortunate in that, when possible, I can choose to spend my money wisely in small businesses with ethical purchasing practices. But for most, if not all, Americans it’s nearly impossible to avoid items made in China, and impossible to know if what we buy is made in the labor camps.
No U.S. company who has manufacturing plants in China, including well-known brands, can ensure their goods are made without prison labor. Chinese manufactures believe they have little choice in using forced labor in order to keep up with the consumer demand for cheap products. They would be forced out of business if they raised their prices. The only way to stop this is lowering our demand.
There are U.S. laws enacted to stop the flow of goods made by forced labor, but they are worthless words on paper. The only thing that will stop it is for us to stop demanding cheap goods. Having independent 3rd party inspections would help but it’s doubtful it would have a lasting impact because of China’s lack of transparency and a company’s habit of simply changing their name when sanctioned.
The author ends the book with a list of questions to ask before we purchase something which basically boils down to:
do I truly need this, or would something I own work just as well? Do I need it enough to be willing to pay more for it? If I buy it how often would I use it? Would I be willing to get rid of three things if I do buy it?
If we are honest with ourselves, we all have our weaknesses, whether it’s electronics, home décor, fashion, small cheap toys /stocking stuffers, and the like. My husband and I have made a conscious effort to not buy more STUFF, and if we do, something needs to leave our house. Our primary motivation was to simplify our lives, but now we have an even more compelling reason to buy less and buy responsibly.
According to one study, consumers wouldn’t buy something if told it was made in a labor camp. But the effect went away in thirty minutes. Our brain’s pleasure center lights up when we see something on sale or for less money than we would expect to pay. The solution is to not shop for entertainment or buy simply because something is cheap.
Our consumerist society is causing untold suffering and torture worse than anything we can imagine. We can no longer claim innocence and ignorance as an excuse.
Thanks to my friend Jenna for putting this book on my radar!
Our duo reviews can be found at https://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpres...
March 2, 2021
A shocking expose
Shortly after starting this book, I checked five items near me to see where they had been made:
•Aeropostale hoodie - China
•Apple mouse - China
•The magnifying glass I used to read the fine print saying where the Apple mouse had been made - China
•Australian tourist teacup - Australia
•My cat's food bowl - China
This didn't shock me but what I read in Made in China did. It left me reeling. It made me sick, knowing that items I own probably came from forced labor and horrific human rights abuses. In a sense, I am responsible.
Amelia Pang takes us into the heart of China's forced labor (laogi) camps, the "reform through labor" and the "compulsory isolation drug detox centers", showing the hidden cost of the Western world's insatiable demand for low-cost goods.
The book centers around the story of Sun Yi, a practitioner of Falun Gong, a religion focused on meditative practices and the belief that meditation can realign one's energy, curing disease and illness.
Any non-state sponsored religion is illegal in China and practitioners are routinely thrown into reform through labor (RTL) camps. This is what happened to Sun Yi. Falun Gong is illegal and because of his beliefs, Sun was arrested and thrown into Masanjia Labor Camp for several years.
I won't even begin to describe the atrocities Sun endured. There were pages I had to skip because it was so horrific. Amidst the torture, Sun was forced to labor for 15-20 hours a day and occasionally around the clock when a deadline for goods had to be met.
One "job" Sun had was making foam Halloween decorations. At one point during his sentence, he decided to write letters begging for help. Knowing he would be killed if caught, he sneaked these lettters into a handful of packages bound for English-speaking countries.
A few years later, a woman in Oregon opened a package with gravestone decorations her sister had bought on discount at KMart and which had been gathering dust all this time. She discovered Sun's letter and went public with it.
Amelia Pang interweaves Sun Yi's story with the history of China's camps and their numerous human rights abuses, past and present. I knew the Chinese Communist Party has a blatant disregard for human life but...... whew. What I read in this book? Unbelievable. It's so much worse than what I thought.
I have pages of passages I highlighted. I don't even know where to begin sharing with you the brutality and inhumanity. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I learned that China is most likely killing prisoners of conscience in order to sell their organs. The heinousness knows no ends. Thousands of them every year.
While it is a difficult book to read, I urge everyone to read it. You, me, and everyone else who buys products made in China are responsible for the immense human suffering that is the result of our ravenous desire to buy, buy, buy as cheaply as possible.
Until we stop buying for the sake of buying, and until we stop demanding ever lower prices, we will purchase products that come at an extreme amount of human suffering. Until Western countries and corporations refuse to export from China unless they put an end to their human rights abuses, people will continue to be tortured and to die as a result of the consumption of those of us in the West.
Ms. Pang does offer a few ways individuals can do their part but unfortunately it's going to take a hell of a lot of us to care and stop turning a blind eye just because it makes us happy to buy shit we don't need.
Because of climate change, my partner and I decided a bit over a year ago to stop buying anything we don't actually need. After reading this book, I am further committed to limiting my consumption.
Unfortunately, there will always be some things we have to buy and it's impossible to know exactly where our products come from and if they are a result of forced labor. It matters not if you buy from Walmart, Target, or Nordstrum. It's virtually impossible for even an auditor to know if a factory is using forced labor and it's in the interest of corporations to not look deeply. Not all goods which come from China are assembled with forced labor but even if it was just a little, it would still be unacceptable. It is more than "just a little" though and consumers have no way to know which products we buy are the result of forced labor, even of children.
I challenge you to read this book and learn what really happens when we demand ever more goods, ever faster, and ever cheaper. And next time you go to purchase something, ask yourself the following questions listed in this book:
1) "Do I already own something that serves the same purpose?"
2) "Is this item so much better that I would feel compelled to donate three things in its place?"
3) "If it were more expensive, would I still try to figure out a way to afford it or am I feeling an urge to buy this only because it's extremely cheap?"
4) "If the product I'm considering is an updated version of one that I already own, is my current one working just fine?"
5) "Am I sure I will wear or use this product a lot? Or will this likely end up sitting in storage after one use?"
If you don't need it, don't buy it.
If you care about others and are against human rights abuses, you need to read this book. While it's not easy, it is imperative that we learn how we are each responsible for extreme human suffering... and what small steps we can take to try to put an end to this.
Remember: "During our endless search for the newest trends for the lowest prices, we become complicit in the forced-labor industry. Chinese manufacturers often believe they have no choice but to secretly outsource to gulags, because they cannot meet the global consumer demand for budget prices and the latest trends."
You are either for this or against it. I hope you're against it.
Shortly after starting this book, I checked five items near me to see where they had been made:
•Aeropostale hoodie - China
•Apple mouse - China
•The magnifying glass I used to read the fine print saying where the Apple mouse had been made - China
•Australian tourist teacup - Australia
•My cat's food bowl - China
This didn't shock me but what I read in Made in China did. It left me reeling. It made me sick, knowing that items I own probably came from forced labor and horrific human rights abuses. In a sense, I am responsible.
Amelia Pang takes us into the heart of China's forced labor (laogi) camps, the "reform through labor" and the "compulsory isolation drug detox centers", showing the hidden cost of the Western world's insatiable demand for low-cost goods.
The book centers around the story of Sun Yi, a practitioner of Falun Gong, a religion focused on meditative practices and the belief that meditation can realign one's energy, curing disease and illness.
Any non-state sponsored religion is illegal in China and practitioners are routinely thrown into reform through labor (RTL) camps. This is what happened to Sun Yi. Falun Gong is illegal and because of his beliefs, Sun was arrested and thrown into Masanjia Labor Camp for several years.
I won't even begin to describe the atrocities Sun endured. There were pages I had to skip because it was so horrific. Amidst the torture, Sun was forced to labor for 15-20 hours a day and occasionally around the clock when a deadline for goods had to be met.
One "job" Sun had was making foam Halloween decorations. At one point during his sentence, he decided to write letters begging for help. Knowing he would be killed if caught, he sneaked these lettters into a handful of packages bound for English-speaking countries.
A few years later, a woman in Oregon opened a package with gravestone decorations her sister had bought on discount at KMart and which had been gathering dust all this time. She discovered Sun's letter and went public with it.
Amelia Pang interweaves Sun Yi's story with the history of China's camps and their numerous human rights abuses, past and present. I knew the Chinese Communist Party has a blatant disregard for human life but...... whew. What I read in this book? Unbelievable. It's so much worse than what I thought.
I have pages of passages I highlighted. I don't even know where to begin sharing with you the brutality and inhumanity. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I learned that China is most likely killing prisoners of conscience in order to sell their organs. The heinousness knows no ends. Thousands of them every year.
While it is a difficult book to read, I urge everyone to read it. You, me, and everyone else who buys products made in China are responsible for the immense human suffering that is the result of our ravenous desire to buy, buy, buy as cheaply as possible.
Until we stop buying for the sake of buying, and until we stop demanding ever lower prices, we will purchase products that come at an extreme amount of human suffering. Until Western countries and corporations refuse to export from China unless they put an end to their human rights abuses, people will continue to be tortured and to die as a result of the consumption of those of us in the West.
Ms. Pang does offer a few ways individuals can do their part but unfortunately it's going to take a hell of a lot of us to care and stop turning a blind eye just because it makes us happy to buy shit we don't need.
Because of climate change, my partner and I decided a bit over a year ago to stop buying anything we don't actually need. After reading this book, I am further committed to limiting my consumption.
Unfortunately, there will always be some things we have to buy and it's impossible to know exactly where our products come from and if they are a result of forced labor. It matters not if you buy from Walmart, Target, or Nordstrum. It's virtually impossible for even an auditor to know if a factory is using forced labor and it's in the interest of corporations to not look deeply. Not all goods which come from China are assembled with forced labor but even if it was just a little, it would still be unacceptable. It is more than "just a little" though and consumers have no way to know which products we buy are the result of forced labor, even of children.
I challenge you to read this book and learn what really happens when we demand ever more goods, ever faster, and ever cheaper. And next time you go to purchase something, ask yourself the following questions listed in this book:
1) "Do I already own something that serves the same purpose?"
2) "Is this item so much better that I would feel compelled to donate three things in its place?"
3) "If it were more expensive, would I still try to figure out a way to afford it or am I feeling an urge to buy this only because it's extremely cheap?"
4) "If the product I'm considering is an updated version of one that I already own, is my current one working just fine?"
5) "Am I sure I will wear or use this product a lot? Or will this likely end up sitting in storage after one use?"
If you don't need it, don't buy it.
If you care about others and are against human rights abuses, you need to read this book. While it's not easy, it is imperative that we learn how we are each responsible for extreme human suffering... and what small steps we can take to try to put an end to this.
Remember: "During our endless search for the newest trends for the lowest prices, we become complicit in the forced-labor industry. Chinese manufacturers often believe they have no choice but to secretly outsource to gulags, because they cannot meet the global consumer demand for budget prices and the latest trends."
You are either for this or against it. I hope you're against it.
February 19, 2021
I had a reason for wanting to read this book.
Recently a friend whom I have not seen since before the pandemic....sent me a huge - years supply- of Reese’s peanut butter cups....( sweet chocolate gift)... but what my friend didn’t know —-and I had just learned ...is that China’s sweet tooth for a chocolate melts with economic slowdown — why?
Not only are Americans looking for a healthier snack ....but Hershey’s the worlds largest chocolate company, failed at curbing child labor laws in cocoa fields.
Advocate groups say that they are still not sure as to whether it would strongly support U.S. regulations.
So... when I saw this book I wanted to learn more about what I feared....and learn more about china’s labor practices.
And frankly...it’s more scary than I thought....and it’s not just candy we have to worry about: think of products sold at Kmart, fashion at H&M, etc.
Buying anything ‘made in China’....will cause pause from this reader.
Valuable book....
An excellent researched non-fiction book. Amelia Pang followed a political prisoner- Sun Yi....and exposes the alarming truth about forced labor camps.
I listened to the Audiobook....( thank you, Netgalley, Workman Audio, and author Amelia Pang)...
Recently a friend whom I have not seen since before the pandemic....sent me a huge - years supply- of Reese’s peanut butter cups....( sweet chocolate gift)... but what my friend didn’t know —-and I had just learned ...is that China’s sweet tooth for a chocolate melts with economic slowdown — why?
Not only are Americans looking for a healthier snack ....but Hershey’s the worlds largest chocolate company, failed at curbing child labor laws in cocoa fields.
Advocate groups say that they are still not sure as to whether it would strongly support U.S. regulations.
So... when I saw this book I wanted to learn more about what I feared....and learn more about china’s labor practices.
And frankly...it’s more scary than I thought....and it’s not just candy we have to worry about: think of products sold at Kmart, fashion at H&M, etc.
Buying anything ‘made in China’....will cause pause from this reader.
Valuable book....
An excellent researched non-fiction book. Amelia Pang followed a political prisoner- Sun Yi....and exposes the alarming truth about forced labor camps.
I listened to the Audiobook....( thank you, Netgalley, Workman Audio, and author Amelia Pang)...
January 13, 2022
Pang informs us about the extensive use of forced labor in China. Millions of political dissidents, democracy advocates, environmental activists, Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Falun Gong members, and just unfortunate people caught up in an authoritarian system are placed in prisons. Some of these are secret and many have euphemistic names such as reeducation camps or detox centers but they are prisons where torture is the norm. Pang’s descriptions immediately evoke thoughts of Russian gulags of the Stalin era. Prisoners are worked from early morning to late at night without regard to health or safety. Some are literally worked to death. Others may be used to harvest their organs. The goods they make are shipped to factories throughout China where they are typically exported, everything from holiday decorations to electronic components.
Pang gives us the personal story of Sun Yi. Sun was a college graduate working his way up in management when he became a Falun Gong member. Sun was introspective and concerned about the meaning of life. Falun Gong combines meditation with exercise in a spiritual practice emphasizing moral behavior. Its devotees practice it with a religious fervor. The Chinese Communist Party regards it as an evil cult. The CCP fears any independent organized group. The CCP only tolerates religion if it is practiced in state-controlled churches. Sun was sent to a reeducation camp where he began by making Halloween decorations day and night interrupted by a few hours’ sleep. As with others, his work assignments would get increasingly harsher. When he resisted he was given excruciating torture. He slipped notes into some boxes of decorations so the outside world would know what was happening to him and countless others in the camps. One note was found when a box was opened in Oregon. Pang continues with the story of the woman who found the note and Sun’s eventual release and escape to Indonesia where they would meet.
Pang relates Sun’s human-interest story holding our attention while she makes her case about the scope and severity of oppressive forced labor in China. She is particularly concerned about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, a Chinese province in Central Asia. The Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim group. The CCP is working to eliminate the religion, language and entire culture through reeducation camps. Xinjiang contains valuable mineral deposits and the CCP aims to eliminate Uyghur identity and make Xinjiang Chinese in every way. Xinjiang is a midway point on the historic silk road. It borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Russia. Xinjiang is essential to China’s Belt and Road initiative which will connect to those countries, the Middle East and Europe though Xinjiang. China makes enormous profits off of forced labor and it intends to make significant profits exploiting Xinjiang and its Belt and Road initiative.
Pang offers solutions. One is for consumers to avoid over-consumption of cheap goods. I doubt this is a practical solution. Another is to hold companies accountable for selling products that include components made by forced labor. This could help, but most Western companies do not buy directly from the camps. The Chinese factories they buy from deny they buy products from labor camps, though many do and most Western companies don’t investigate deeply. Even if they did, Chinese software companies have sprung up that specialize in altering factory records to pass foreign audits. That there is a market for such software, pretty much proves Pang’s case. Another is government regulation by importing countries. The U.S. has some regulations prohibiting importation of goods produced by forced labor, but their implementation is very difficult. Better laws could be made, but I doubt there is much political will to do so. The Biden administration has been calling out China for its treatment of the Uyghurs, most recently by having U. S. diplomats boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics starting in early February.
In short, Pang gives us a disturbing account of forced labor in China mixed in with a heartrending one of Sun Yi. I found the book an eyeopener. I knew imprisoning dissidents and forced labor was taking place in China, but was not aware of the scope and the scale. For those concerned, the book reads quickly and is well worth the time.
Pang gives us the personal story of Sun Yi. Sun was a college graduate working his way up in management when he became a Falun Gong member. Sun was introspective and concerned about the meaning of life. Falun Gong combines meditation with exercise in a spiritual practice emphasizing moral behavior. Its devotees practice it with a religious fervor. The Chinese Communist Party regards it as an evil cult. The CCP fears any independent organized group. The CCP only tolerates religion if it is practiced in state-controlled churches. Sun was sent to a reeducation camp where he began by making Halloween decorations day and night interrupted by a few hours’ sleep. As with others, his work assignments would get increasingly harsher. When he resisted he was given excruciating torture. He slipped notes into some boxes of decorations so the outside world would know what was happening to him and countless others in the camps. One note was found when a box was opened in Oregon. Pang continues with the story of the woman who found the note and Sun’s eventual release and escape to Indonesia where they would meet.
Pang relates Sun’s human-interest story holding our attention while she makes her case about the scope and severity of oppressive forced labor in China. She is particularly concerned about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, a Chinese province in Central Asia. The Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim group. The CCP is working to eliminate the religion, language and entire culture through reeducation camps. Xinjiang contains valuable mineral deposits and the CCP aims to eliminate Uyghur identity and make Xinjiang Chinese in every way. Xinjiang is a midway point on the historic silk road. It borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Russia. Xinjiang is essential to China’s Belt and Road initiative which will connect to those countries, the Middle East and Europe though Xinjiang. China makes enormous profits off of forced labor and it intends to make significant profits exploiting Xinjiang and its Belt and Road initiative.
Pang offers solutions. One is for consumers to avoid over-consumption of cheap goods. I doubt this is a practical solution. Another is to hold companies accountable for selling products that include components made by forced labor. This could help, but most Western companies do not buy directly from the camps. The Chinese factories they buy from deny they buy products from labor camps, though many do and most Western companies don’t investigate deeply. Even if they did, Chinese software companies have sprung up that specialize in altering factory records to pass foreign audits. That there is a market for such software, pretty much proves Pang’s case. Another is government regulation by importing countries. The U.S. has some regulations prohibiting importation of goods produced by forced labor, but their implementation is very difficult. Better laws could be made, but I doubt there is much political will to do so. The Biden administration has been calling out China for its treatment of the Uyghurs, most recently by having U. S. diplomats boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics starting in early February.
In short, Pang gives us a disturbing account of forced labor in China mixed in with a heartrending one of Sun Yi. I found the book an eyeopener. I knew imprisoning dissidents and forced labor was taking place in China, but was not aware of the scope and the scale. For those concerned, the book reads quickly and is well worth the time.
April 20, 2021
It's only February, and I can confidently state I just read the most important book of 2021. Perhaps of my life.
In a word, Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods is terrifying. There are no words I could write to adequately express the pain I feel knowing I've indirectly supported the horrible practice of prison labor in China. And here's some sobering news: We all have.
Forced labor camps produce the cheap products we buy. Even if they're labeled "Made in America", chances are pieces/parts to assemble these products were made by unpaid, abused, tortured, force-fed and raped workers in factories in China. This book offers exposure of the nightmarish atrocities, but not many answers on how to stop it, mainly because there aren't many beyond spreading the word. It seems it's up to all of us not to look away, and to stand up to face the hideous truth behind our coveted ability to save a buck.
In addition, there is also the horror of China's billion dollar organ transplant industry, which regularly tests these forced workers to see if matches can be found for involuntary harvest. If you thought it was disturbing to see Katniss volunteer for Prim in The Hunger Games, you'll never sleep again when you read about how these forced labor prisoners are volunteered with their lives so someone can make a yuan or two off their organs.
This is reality for millions in China, though as Americans we're shielded from most of the details because the Chinese government and its corporations are not giving up their "success" secrets without a fight.
I'm not saying Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods is an easy read, but it's definitely an important one. Awareness is the first step to solving the outrageous crime of forced labor. We all need that knowledge to nudge us to step up and do our part.
Thank you to NetGalley, Workman Audio, and especially author Amelia Pang for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. You have changed my outlook for the better, and I am indebted to you for this eye-opening experience.
In a word, Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods is terrifying. There are no words I could write to adequately express the pain I feel knowing I've indirectly supported the horrible practice of prison labor in China. And here's some sobering news: We all have.
Forced labor camps produce the cheap products we buy. Even if they're labeled "Made in America", chances are pieces/parts to assemble these products were made by unpaid, abused, tortured, force-fed and raped workers in factories in China. This book offers exposure of the nightmarish atrocities, but not many answers on how to stop it, mainly because there aren't many beyond spreading the word. It seems it's up to all of us not to look away, and to stand up to face the hideous truth behind our coveted ability to save a buck.
In addition, there is also the horror of China's billion dollar organ transplant industry, which regularly tests these forced workers to see if matches can be found for involuntary harvest. If you thought it was disturbing to see Katniss volunteer for Prim in The Hunger Games, you'll never sleep again when you read about how these forced labor prisoners are volunteered with their lives so someone can make a yuan or two off their organs.
This is reality for millions in China, though as Americans we're shielded from most of the details because the Chinese government and its corporations are not giving up their "success" secrets without a fight.
I'm not saying Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods is an easy read, but it's definitely an important one. Awareness is the first step to solving the outrageous crime of forced labor. We all need that knowledge to nudge us to step up and do our part.
Thank you to NetGalley, Workman Audio, and especially author Amelia Pang for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. You have changed my outlook for the better, and I am indebted to you for this eye-opening experience.
November 26, 2021
...and this is true....I can’t even......🌟 The research in this book is phenomenal! Warning!!! The content is graphic portraying what is happening in forced labor camps. I had no idea, but will be evaluating my buying habits.
I did not think I could ever be more disturbed over true content than the Holocaust, but, people, if this is happening in China or other countries we cannot live our lives or close our eyes at night again without seeking help for the oppressed. I will never look at those cheap little trinkets in the stores again without thinking about the scarred and scared hands that made them.
There were moments when my heart was racing so fast, I became nauseous and lightheaded. Each chapter was shocking with the torture Sun suffered in one of the China work camps, better known as Re-education camps the Chinese Communist Party assembled to create cheap products on the backs of starved, beaten and electrocuted and even worse....men, women and children. Working 18 hours a day....7 days a week....
If they are executed, their organs are harvested, which is a whole other story itself.
Sun is tortured night and day in a camp until he seeks help by putting SOS letters in packages from the factories heading to the U.S. into the stores of H&M, Walmart, Kmart, Amazon and many others. Thank goodness someone opened it and took heart to seek help and justice., but too late for so many. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped.
Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy for my review.
I did not think I could ever be more disturbed over true content than the Holocaust, but, people, if this is happening in China or other countries we cannot live our lives or close our eyes at night again without seeking help for the oppressed. I will never look at those cheap little trinkets in the stores again without thinking about the scarred and scared hands that made them.
There were moments when my heart was racing so fast, I became nauseous and lightheaded. Each chapter was shocking with the torture Sun suffered in one of the China work camps, better known as Re-education camps the Chinese Communist Party assembled to create cheap products on the backs of starved, beaten and electrocuted and even worse....men, women and children. Working 18 hours a day....7 days a week....
If they are executed, their organs are harvested, which is a whole other story itself.
Sun is tortured night and day in a camp until he seeks help by putting SOS letters in packages from the factories heading to the U.S. into the stores of H&M, Walmart, Kmart, Amazon and many others. Thank goodness someone opened it and took heart to seek help and justice., but too late for so many. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped.
Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy for my review.
August 10, 2021
4 ☆
Made in China is an exposé of the inhumane forced labor practices within China's prison industry. This book centered around Sun Yi, who smuggled an SOS letter into one of the products he made that was bound for the US market. His note was found 4 years later by Julie Keith, a woman in Oregon who tried to help by publicizing Sun Yi's note and contacting federal government authorities.
Born in 1966 into humble circumstances, Sun Yi's life held promise because of his admission into an elite university. His experiences, however, highlighted the fragility of socioeconomic mobility, the importance of guanxi (aka social connections), and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) handling of perceived threats to its authority. Health problems and philosophical questions led Sun Yi to join Falun Gong, an organization focused upon health and meditation. Unfortunately, Sun Yi had joined shortly after Falun Gong had fallen out of the CCP's good graces over a decision about fees, which was ultimately about control. The CCP launched a campaign to impugn (smearing them as a "cult") and then dismantle Falun Gong through arrests and incarceration. The CCP's mistreatment of Falun Gong became a self-fulfilling prophecy as they eventually became one of the best organized social groups, second only to the Party in numbers. Certainly Sun Yi had become more motivated as a human rights reformer / dissenter as he experienced a long series of arrests and imprisonment starting in 2001, when his employer reported him as a Falun Gong practitioner, and ended only in 2016 when he had fled China.
Investigative journalist Pang may have focused upon Sun Yi because her mother is an adherent of Falun Gong, but Made in China also provided broader context. China had modeled laogai, their system of incarceration and forced labor, after the Soviet gulag, in which political dissenters were imprisoned and subsequently "re-educated through labor" (RTL). The CCP tells its people that criminals are being reformed into model citizens. Many of these "criminals" however are what the US and Europe label as "prisoners of conscience" who have been imprisoned for their political stances, such as the 1989 Tianamen Square protesters, and/or for their religious beliefs - ranging from Falun Gong, Christianity, Tibetan Buddhists, and the Muslim Uyghurs.
Made in China described the RTL process, not only of Sun Yi, but of other former prisoners of conscience. These vignettes depicted graphic and just outright abuse of human rights from the moment they were arrested, imprisoned after farcical court proceedings if any, and then compelled to make products either for the export trade or as part of American and European companies' supply chains. These labor camps entailed 15+ hour work shifts without adequate food and water, heating or cooling ventilation, and medical care. During the entire time, armed guards would beat anyone who for working too slowly and failing to meet production quotas.
As to why anyone should care, Pang pointed out that consumers, in particular Americans, are complicit in sustaining the laogai system. According to federal statistics (https://ustr.gov/countries-regions), the US is the largest importer of products in the world with China providing nearly 20 percent of that trade volume, which was worth $452 billion in 2019.
If the authorities deemed that their inmates were in need of re-educated beliefs, then physical torture usually-but-not-always just short of death occurred. The plight of the Uyghurs in western China was addressed in the final main chapter. I read this in part because I wanted current information after reading The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, which was published in 2010. Satellite imagery reveal that sprawling laogai campuses have been built in Xinjiang. Estimates range from 1 to 3 million of the Uyghurs are currently incarcerated in these re-education centers. Journalist interviews of former inmates are horrific not only for the forced labor but sexual assaults of the women and the wholesale cultural genocide.
China's prison industry is far from new, and the US government is aware of it. But US legislation as worded to ban imports from forced labor have been ineffective and lack enforcement teeth. When international pressure was applied to China's forced labor practices, then the CCP outwardly complied but in reality played a semantics game. In 2013, the CCP banned RTL prisons. But there was no mass movement of the 160,000 detainees as the RTL complexes were renamed as "compulsory isolation drug detox centers," "custody and education centers" or something equally illusory. Companies also share the complicity as they outsource their manufacturing to suppliers who in turn subcontract prison labor to reduce costs. Since Nike was exposed in a forced labor scandal in 1997, corporations say that they perform audits of foreign factories but Pang pointed out that many are cursory. In the epilogue, Pang advocated for greater consumer awareness and action. And given the volume of trade, I believe that boycotting all products made in China is an overly simplistic solution and over-reaction. Besides, other countries also allow violations of international labor laws.
Pang had conducted original research of a few RTL camps in China as well as interviews with former inmates. This topic is important, as it's a matter of life or death; and her reporting would in all likelihood result in her arrest were she ever to return to China. However, the organization of her information didn't always flow for me. Statistics were hard to come by, so this exposé was much more qualitative than quantitative. I couldn't agree with all of her inferences as some of her arguments just seemed to fall a bit short. For instance, even though I fundamentally agree that fast fashion and one-time-use disposable items are bad for the environment, her point linking forced labor with climate change was a bit weak. So this subject is of 5-star caliber, but in light of my criticism, I'm rating this as a 4-star book.
Made in China is an exposé of the inhumane forced labor practices within China's prison industry. This book centered around Sun Yi, who smuggled an SOS letter into one of the products he made that was bound for the US market. His note was found 4 years later by Julie Keith, a woman in Oregon who tried to help by publicizing Sun Yi's note and contacting federal government authorities.
Born in 1966 into humble circumstances, Sun Yi's life held promise because of his admission into an elite university. His experiences, however, highlighted the fragility of socioeconomic mobility, the importance of guanxi (aka social connections), and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) handling of perceived threats to its authority. Health problems and philosophical questions led Sun Yi to join Falun Gong, an organization focused upon health and meditation. Unfortunately, Sun Yi had joined shortly after Falun Gong had fallen out of the CCP's good graces over a decision about fees, which was ultimately about control. The CCP launched a campaign to impugn (smearing them as a "cult") and then dismantle Falun Gong through arrests and incarceration. The CCP's mistreatment of Falun Gong became a self-fulfilling prophecy as they eventually became one of the best organized social groups, second only to the Party in numbers. Certainly Sun Yi had become more motivated as a human rights reformer / dissenter as he experienced a long series of arrests and imprisonment starting in 2001, when his employer reported him as a Falun Gong practitioner, and ended only in 2016 when he had fled China.
Investigative journalist Pang may have focused upon Sun Yi because her mother is an adherent of Falun Gong, but Made in China also provided broader context. China had modeled laogai, their system of incarceration and forced labor, after the Soviet gulag, in which political dissenters were imprisoned and subsequently "re-educated through labor" (RTL). The CCP tells its people that criminals are being reformed into model citizens. Many of these "criminals" however are what the US and Europe label as "prisoners of conscience" who have been imprisoned for their political stances, such as the 1989 Tianamen Square protesters, and/or for their religious beliefs - ranging from Falun Gong, Christianity, Tibetan Buddhists, and the Muslim Uyghurs.
Made in China described the RTL process, not only of Sun Yi, but of other former prisoners of conscience. These vignettes depicted graphic and just outright abuse of human rights from the moment they were arrested, imprisoned after farcical court proceedings if any, and then compelled to make products either for the export trade or as part of American and European companies' supply chains. These labor camps entailed 15+ hour work shifts without adequate food and water, heating or cooling ventilation, and medical care. During the entire time, armed guards would beat anyone who for working too slowly and failing to meet production quotas.
As to why anyone should care, Pang pointed out that consumers, in particular Americans, are complicit in sustaining the laogai system. According to federal statistics (https://ustr.gov/countries-regions), the US is the largest importer of products in the world with China providing nearly 20 percent of that trade volume, which was worth $452 billion in 2019.
... the reasons Chinese suppliers subcontract to forced laborers lead straight to global consumers: to us and the way we buy. In our ceaseless search for the cheapest and the most current design, technology, flavor, or appliance, we reward the companies that offer the lowest prices and sell the latest trends.
Our spending habits put brands on a perpetual search for ways to shorten the time between design, manufacturing, and distribution. ... our current pressure on companies to endlessly optimize [their supply chains] is fundamentally unsustainable.
If the authorities deemed that their inmates were in need of re-educated beliefs, then physical torture usually-but-not-always just short of death occurred. The plight of the Uyghurs in western China was addressed in the final main chapter. I read this in part because I wanted current information after reading The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, which was published in 2010. Satellite imagery reveal that sprawling laogai campuses have been built in Xinjiang. Estimates range from 1 to 3 million of the Uyghurs are currently incarcerated in these re-education centers. Journalist interviews of former inmates are horrific not only for the forced labor but sexual assaults of the women and the wholesale cultural genocide.
China's prison industry is far from new, and the US government is aware of it. But US legislation as worded to ban imports from forced labor have been ineffective and lack enforcement teeth. When international pressure was applied to China's forced labor practices, then the CCP outwardly complied but in reality played a semantics game. In 2013, the CCP banned RTL prisons. But there was no mass movement of the 160,000 detainees as the RTL complexes were renamed as "compulsory isolation drug detox centers," "custody and education centers" or something equally illusory. Companies also share the complicity as they outsource their manufacturing to suppliers who in turn subcontract prison labor to reduce costs. Since Nike was exposed in a forced labor scandal in 1997, corporations say that they perform audits of foreign factories but Pang pointed out that many are cursory. In the epilogue, Pang advocated for greater consumer awareness and action. And given the volume of trade, I believe that boycotting all products made in China is an overly simplistic solution and over-reaction. Besides, other countries also allow violations of international labor laws.
Pang had conducted original research of a few RTL camps in China as well as interviews with former inmates. This topic is important, as it's a matter of life or death; and her reporting would in all likelihood result in her arrest were she ever to return to China. However, the organization of her information didn't always flow for me. Statistics were hard to come by, so this exposé was much more qualitative than quantitative. I couldn't agree with all of her inferences as some of her arguments just seemed to fall a bit short. For instance, even though I fundamentally agree that fast fashion and one-time-use disposable items are bad for the environment, her point linking forced labor with climate change was a bit weak. So this subject is of 5-star caliber, but in light of my criticism, I'm rating this as a 4-star book.
March 21, 2021
Buyer Beware!
Imagine a race being systematically wiped out by a country. Yes, indeed the thoughts of of Nazi Germany might enter your mind, but then we realize that this is happening to the Uyghur group in Northwest China.
Imagine a country that looks at you are a group of salable organs and indeed this is exactly what China is doing.
Many of us look to save money when buying products. From the electronics to decorations during holidays, we are constantly searching out bargains never really thinking about where or how these things were made.
In the Made in China book, we certainly get an eye opening and appalling look into the methods China uses to bring us those cheap bargains.
The settings where they are constructed are mainly labor camps where the poor workers are treated worse than animals, where they arrive in these places on trumped up charges, or be found to do something the government considers punishable. There they labor hour after hour for despicable companies, in deplorable circumstances, eighteen hours a day seven days a week. Medical care is nonexistent and family is prohibited at times from seeing their loved ones.
It is even a fact that some are mined as organ givers, and there is a brisk trade for kidneys, lungs, etc.
Although the United States government is aware of these practices, it is a struggle to try and find definitive proof for there always seems to be ways in which companies wiggle out of being fined and exposed. Not much can be done for as we know, China is a communist country where every part of one’s life is watched and monitored.
One can be held in prison, never having a trial, for practicing the wrong religion, saying a word against the regime, or even looking to gain a bit of respect for your fellow man. Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals are imprisoned and sentences for all last years, if indeed they survive.
There is a viable option for we consumers and that is to stop buying products that are made in China. Money seems to be the only way to hit them and the only thing they care about.
This book might just make you reevaluate how you purchase products. What comes cheaply to we consumers bears a devastating price paid by countless millions. Amalia Pang wrote a wonderful exhaustive book after much research into the fact that many our goods are made at the detriment and death of others.
***Americans love their cheap goods. We are super fans of the dollar stores, and never really glance at a label to see where the product comes from. We are proud of ourselves because we "save" money and tend to purchase throwaway goods because it guarantees us an easier lifestyle. In reading Made in China, we learn of the human toll it takes on the people who put together our goods. It is a harrowing tale and one that both Jan and I have resolved to try and do our part with by buying less and making sure we buy products produced under the auspices that might govern fair and equitable employment. ***
Imagine a race being systematically wiped out by a country. Yes, indeed the thoughts of of Nazi Germany might enter your mind, but then we realize that this is happening to the Uyghur group in Northwest China.
Imagine a country that looks at you are a group of salable organs and indeed this is exactly what China is doing.
Many of us look to save money when buying products. From the electronics to decorations during holidays, we are constantly searching out bargains never really thinking about where or how these things were made.
In the Made in China book, we certainly get an eye opening and appalling look into the methods China uses to bring us those cheap bargains.
The settings where they are constructed are mainly labor camps where the poor workers are treated worse than animals, where they arrive in these places on trumped up charges, or be found to do something the government considers punishable. There they labor hour after hour for despicable companies, in deplorable circumstances, eighteen hours a day seven days a week. Medical care is nonexistent and family is prohibited at times from seeing their loved ones.
It is even a fact that some are mined as organ givers, and there is a brisk trade for kidneys, lungs, etc.
Although the United States government is aware of these practices, it is a struggle to try and find definitive proof for there always seems to be ways in which companies wiggle out of being fined and exposed. Not much can be done for as we know, China is a communist country where every part of one’s life is watched and monitored.
One can be held in prison, never having a trial, for practicing the wrong religion, saying a word against the regime, or even looking to gain a bit of respect for your fellow man. Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals are imprisoned and sentences for all last years, if indeed they survive.
There is a viable option for we consumers and that is to stop buying products that are made in China. Money seems to be the only way to hit them and the only thing they care about.
This book might just make you reevaluate how you purchase products. What comes cheaply to we consumers bears a devastating price paid by countless millions. Amalia Pang wrote a wonderful exhaustive book after much research into the fact that many our goods are made at the detriment and death of others.
***Americans love their cheap goods. We are super fans of the dollar stores, and never really glance at a label to see where the product comes from. We are proud of ourselves because we "save" money and tend to purchase throwaway goods because it guarantees us an easier lifestyle. In reading Made in China, we learn of the human toll it takes on the people who put together our goods. It is a harrowing tale and one that both Jan and I have resolved to try and do our part with by buying less and making sure we buy products produced under the auspices that might govern fair and equitable employment. ***
January 20, 2021
After reading this book, the "Made in China" label will be more than a whisper in your ear. It will be a slap in the face. The Chinese Communist Party is actively involved in using "reeducation camps" as a source of cheap or free labor. The conditions are horrendous. This book gives firsthand accounts of the treatment given to the occupants of the camps and some of the methods of torture used to achieve the desired result. Make no mistake, this is no different than the methods employed in Nazi Germany. Specific ethnic groups and religious faiths are among the targets. This is chilling. Amelia Pang includes tips on how we can all change our shopping habits to alleviate demand from this part of the world. We can also be responsible consumers by making ourselves aware of the brand names who have a history of outsourcing with slave labor. If you don't want to spend time reading this book, you can read Sun Yi's story in the documentary "Letter from Masanjia."
A big thank you to Amelia Pang for sharing the stories of these brave men and women who have made such great sacrifices to help others be free. Also thanks to Alongquin Books and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
A big thank you to Amelia Pang for sharing the stories of these brave men and women who have made such great sacrifices to help others be free. Also thanks to Alongquin Books and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
December 30, 2021
Page 108 (my book)
Ma Chunmei, a forced-labor-camp survivor in her late forties, told me she experienced… tortures during her four years at the Heizuizi Women’s Labor Camp in Changchun, also known by the business name Changchun City Arts and Crafts Factory. The guards shocked her breasts with electric batons…she and other women in the camp were forced to manufacture decorative birds, butterflies, fish, ladybugs, and frogs, which all had English labels… Ma Chunmei was released in 2004 and immigrated to the United States in 2009. Nearly a decade later, on a November evening in 2018 not long after Black Friday, she went shopping at a Sears store. She froze in front of a rack displaying bird Christmas ornaments… memories of sexual violence emerged as she stared at the familiar long tails and glittery feathers… “These are the exact birds I made”… She sent pictures of 4.5- inch Donner & Blitzen Incorporated bird ornaments, selling for $3.99 to $12.99 each.
China is now the new superpower – and this may not be such a good thing – more so after reading this book.
Many (myself included) thought that China was to become more liberal in the late 20th century. We were not paying enough attention to the events in 1989 in Tiananmen Square where attempts at liberal democracy were violently crushed. The author outlines how a significant portion of China’s productive capitalism is based on slave labour – of dissidents, Falun Gong members, and minority groups in Western China (Uyghurs and people of Turkic origin).
Page 17
Mainland Chinese ideals tend to place higher value on social stability than human rights.
So, anything seen as a threat to this stability will be repressed – meaning jailed – sometimes with or without a trial, and even if there is a trial in China the conviction rate is 99 percent (page 128).
The author uses eyewitness descriptions of conditions of imprisonment in China – particularly that of Sun Yi whose dire prison letter made world headlines when a woman in Oregon discovered his letter in a box of Halloween decorations. This illustrates the power of journalism to make a difference and make known the harrowing conditions under which consumer items are made in China. For more on this letter one can view the documentary “Letter from Masanjia”.
It is often difficult for us to avoid purchasing goods made in China. There are such a wide variety of products as I can attest to – for example my Christmas tree and most of the stuff on it.
This book tells us what is behind China’s colossal economic output. It is eye-opening.
The author also makes the point that Falun Gong is quite possibly the most organized internal opponent of the Chinese Communist Party. She states that they have more members than the Communist Party. The author also tells us that she is not a member of Falun Gong – and Falun Gong members refuse medical aid, don’t take drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, don’t believe in pre-marital sex, and don’t believe in rights for the LGBT community.
It should also be pointed out (this may have something to do with Falun Gong refusal to have medical treatment) that until a few years ago many organ donors for transplants originated from China - likely coming from the prison population. Some prisoners recounted how they were given medical examinations and blood tests for no apparent reason – possibly to determine their suitability to become donors for transplants in other countries.
It is always more credible when the source of opposition is within a country. The Chinese Communist Party is very good at branding opposition as being foreign influenced. Falun Gong is now labelled as an “evil cult” by the Communist Party with re-education camps now being used to de-program Falun Gong members. The same brutal methods are used on Muslim Uyghurs – and political dissidents.
History is being repeated with China replicating the Stalinist Gulag system.
Economic production by prison slaves is a key factor of China’s economy. This is not likely to change. The Chinese Communist Party obfuscates auditing of production by outside groups and foreign countries who are trying to determine if there are human rights violations.
This is a powerful look at the new superpower and what it implicates for our future.
Ma Chunmei, a forced-labor-camp survivor in her late forties, told me she experienced… tortures during her four years at the Heizuizi Women’s Labor Camp in Changchun, also known by the business name Changchun City Arts and Crafts Factory. The guards shocked her breasts with electric batons…she and other women in the camp were forced to manufacture decorative birds, butterflies, fish, ladybugs, and frogs, which all had English labels… Ma Chunmei was released in 2004 and immigrated to the United States in 2009. Nearly a decade later, on a November evening in 2018 not long after Black Friday, she went shopping at a Sears store. She froze in front of a rack displaying bird Christmas ornaments… memories of sexual violence emerged as she stared at the familiar long tails and glittery feathers… “These are the exact birds I made”… She sent pictures of 4.5- inch Donner & Blitzen Incorporated bird ornaments, selling for $3.99 to $12.99 each.
China is now the new superpower – and this may not be such a good thing – more so after reading this book.
Many (myself included) thought that China was to become more liberal in the late 20th century. We were not paying enough attention to the events in 1989 in Tiananmen Square where attempts at liberal democracy were violently crushed. The author outlines how a significant portion of China’s productive capitalism is based on slave labour – of dissidents, Falun Gong members, and minority groups in Western China (Uyghurs and people of Turkic origin).
Page 17
Mainland Chinese ideals tend to place higher value on social stability than human rights.
So, anything seen as a threat to this stability will be repressed – meaning jailed – sometimes with or without a trial, and even if there is a trial in China the conviction rate is 99 percent (page 128).
The author uses eyewitness descriptions of conditions of imprisonment in China – particularly that of Sun Yi whose dire prison letter made world headlines when a woman in Oregon discovered his letter in a box of Halloween decorations. This illustrates the power of journalism to make a difference and make known the harrowing conditions under which consumer items are made in China. For more on this letter one can view the documentary “Letter from Masanjia”.
It is often difficult for us to avoid purchasing goods made in China. There are such a wide variety of products as I can attest to – for example my Christmas tree and most of the stuff on it.
This book tells us what is behind China’s colossal economic output. It is eye-opening.
The author also makes the point that Falun Gong is quite possibly the most organized internal opponent of the Chinese Communist Party. She states that they have more members than the Communist Party. The author also tells us that she is not a member of Falun Gong – and Falun Gong members refuse medical aid, don’t take drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, don’t believe in pre-marital sex, and don’t believe in rights for the LGBT community.
It should also be pointed out (this may have something to do with Falun Gong refusal to have medical treatment) that until a few years ago many organ donors for transplants originated from China - likely coming from the prison population. Some prisoners recounted how they were given medical examinations and blood tests for no apparent reason – possibly to determine their suitability to become donors for transplants in other countries.
It is always more credible when the source of opposition is within a country. The Chinese Communist Party is very good at branding opposition as being foreign influenced. Falun Gong is now labelled as an “evil cult” by the Communist Party with re-education camps now being used to de-program Falun Gong members. The same brutal methods are used on Muslim Uyghurs – and political dissidents.
History is being repeated with China replicating the Stalinist Gulag system.
Economic production by prison slaves is a key factor of China’s economy. This is not likely to change. The Chinese Communist Party obfuscates auditing of production by outside groups and foreign countries who are trying to determine if there are human rights violations.
This is a powerful look at the new superpower and what it implicates for our future.
January 21, 2022
Horrendous conditions described. Worse scenario details for torture and human rights violations I have read myself outside and since I read Outlaw Ocean. First person experienced too.
So terrible that I can't describe context. The numbers of factory/ political zero worth people by 100,000's. 100's of reasons for something they said or did or none at all. The forced feeding alone. How did Sun Yi live through this?
Consumer goods for fun and decoration. Or high end artistic? Made in China.
Read the costs. And lives of their producers. Difficult difficult cognition needed here to understand this type of group rationality as sane or subjectively "good".
So terrible that I can't describe context. The numbers of factory/ political zero worth people by 100,000's. 100's of reasons for something they said or did or none at all. The forced feeding alone. How did Sun Yi live through this?
Consumer goods for fun and decoration. Or high end artistic? Made in China.
Read the costs. And lives of their producers. Difficult difficult cognition needed here to understand this type of group rationality as sane or subjectively "good".
May 18, 2022
What a harrowing story. The key takeaway is we all have a responsibility to evaluate our consumer habits, because the cost of purchasing cheap merchandise imported from China is the cost of human rights. Full review to come!
May 7, 2023
I put this on hold by mistake (I meant to get a different book that I am still planning to read) but decided to read it anyway. It’s an important topic but could have been done better. It’s mostly a biography with very little on the political and economic environment that makes slave labor camps profitable. I was hoping for more of a bigger picture of how the system works and how to fight it. I encountered a few minor factual errors, so there could have been more.
Most of the book is telling the life story of Sun Yi, a Falun Gong political prisoner whose SOS letter (smuggled into a product package) was found by an American. The book goes into great detail about the Falun Gong and Sun’s life. It has many detailed accounts of his torture and finally a chapter or two about how demand drives forced labor camps. I was hoping for less of a biographical feature article and more of an investigative journalism piece.
Younger customers are more likely to push for ethically sourced products, but it’s difficult to know if the things we buy were made by slaves. It’s hard enough figuring out if something was made in China. I signed a petition a few years asking Amazon to list country of origin on their items for sale, but they have not done so. All of this is only briefly mentioned in the book.
Language: Clean (iirc)
Sexual Content: Sexual violence (see Triggers)
Violence/Gore: Many detailed accounts of torture and resulting medical conditions
Harm to Animals:
Harm to Children:
Other (Triggers):
Most of the book is telling the life story of Sun Yi, a Falun Gong political prisoner whose SOS letter (smuggled into a product package) was found by an American. The book goes into great detail about the Falun Gong and Sun’s life. It has many detailed accounts of his torture and finally a chapter or two about how demand drives forced labor camps. I was hoping for less of a biographical feature article and more of an investigative journalism piece.
Younger customers are more likely to push for ethically sourced products, but it’s difficult to know if the things we buy were made by slaves. It’s hard enough figuring out if something was made in China. I signed a petition a few years asking Amazon to list country of origin on their items for sale, but they have not done so. All of this is only briefly mentioned in the book.
Language: Clean (iirc)
Sexual Content: Sexual violence (see Triggers)
Violence/Gore: Many detailed accounts of torture and resulting medical conditions
Harm to Animals:
Harm to Children:
Other (Triggers):
December 13, 2020
This was a really tough one to read. I found the history detailed and well researched because I was not familiar with many of the events in China that led to forced labor camps. The descriptions of what people endure were graphic but I think they were necessary. I will certainly be looking at more companies that ethically source their materials and labor. You often think that the cheaper price is your "gain" but I had to really assess my own buying and spending habits after reading this book. A solid non-fiction that I think will appeal to people who like both history but also modern day issues that impact us. I did think the book was a balance of blame to go all around- blame for the horrid conditions people face in factories but also blame for us because we are always chasing the "best price."
Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
May 27, 2022
An expose’ of the forced work camps in China, which use political and religious prisoners to make much of the cheap goods that flood the stores in America. The book focuses on Masanjia, a notorious “re-education” camp where prisoners are forced to work a minimum of 15 hour days, making all sorts of cheap goods for exporting: origami mushrooms, silk flowers; ceramic figures, binder clips etc. If someone can’t make their daily quota, they are forced to work longer hours, or are punished through torture. They are given rotten food to eat, 5 minutes a day at most to use a filthy bathroom and have no access to clean anything. The Falung Gong followers are particularly singled out, because their quasi-religious practices are perceived as threatening to the communist regime in China. Through imprisonment and torture, the government tries to get them to renounce their beliefs. Sun Yi was one such prisoner. He was sentenced to Masanjia for a few years, where he underwent forced labor and extreme torture. Somehow he managed to get an SOS letter out of the prison in a package of styrofoam Halloween headstones. Four years later, his letter was discovered by a woman in Oregon, who worked diligently to get his message out to the “proper” authorities. Eventually some journalists learned of the letter, and it became a world wide story. Unfortunately it didn’t stop the manufacturing abuses in China. When called out by the international community on its human rights violations, they simply changed the names of the facilities and kept on doing what they were doing.
The book goes into great detail about Sun Yi’s life and experiences at Masanjia. It also goes into great detail about China’s history and how the Communists came to be in charge. It also explores the ethnic cleansing that is taking place against the Chinese Muslims, the Uyghurs and the Kasakhs. The books also names some of the companies who, whether they realize it or not, are getting their products or parts from these prison camps: H&M, Apple, BMW, Ruffin It (dog toys)and Skool Tools (school supplies). Generally, if you see “Made in China “ on a package, you can assume it was produced in one of these forced labor camps. The only way that China can meet its production quotas and keep costs down is to use forced labor. Oh, and they regularly give the prisoners “physicals” and run medical tests for no reason in order to find involuntary organ donors. China advertises that people can get an organ donation within a week, and if it doesn’t take, they can get another donation quickly. And somehow prisoners just “disappear.”
The author doesn’t really offer many practical solutions to these problems. She would like products labeled “Laogai-Free” through rigorous inspections, just as we have “Fair trade” items. But honestly, given how China operates, I don’t see that happening. We can be more discerning and careful as consumers, stop the throw away consumption and try to avoid the cheap crap that comes out of China. (I say this as I type this on an Apple iPhone, but in my defense, I had my last iPhone for 6 years until it wouldn’t accept updates anymore and became virtually unusable. And iPhones aren’t cheap!) Maybe we can stop buying cheap crap at The Dollar Store and Walmart, though Nordstrom sells items made in these camps too. We can try to find items that are made in the USA, which may cost more but probably don’t have as much human suffering attached to their manufacturing.
Cheap goods are a hard habit to break, and I doubt there are any easy answers to this problem. But if this book makes you think twice about buying “Made in China” goods, maybe put something back on the shelf because of it, then maybe slowly we can effect some change.
An absolute recommend.
The book goes into great detail about Sun Yi’s life and experiences at Masanjia. It also goes into great detail about China’s history and how the Communists came to be in charge. It also explores the ethnic cleansing that is taking place against the Chinese Muslims, the Uyghurs and the Kasakhs. The books also names some of the companies who, whether they realize it or not, are getting their products or parts from these prison camps: H&M, Apple, BMW, Ruffin It (dog toys)and Skool Tools (school supplies). Generally, if you see “Made in China “ on a package, you can assume it was produced in one of these forced labor camps. The only way that China can meet its production quotas and keep costs down is to use forced labor. Oh, and they regularly give the prisoners “physicals” and run medical tests for no reason in order to find involuntary organ donors. China advertises that people can get an organ donation within a week, and if it doesn’t take, they can get another donation quickly. And somehow prisoners just “disappear.”
The author doesn’t really offer many practical solutions to these problems. She would like products labeled “Laogai-Free” through rigorous inspections, just as we have “Fair trade” items. But honestly, given how China operates, I don’t see that happening. We can be more discerning and careful as consumers, stop the throw away consumption and try to avoid the cheap crap that comes out of China. (I say this as I type this on an Apple iPhone, but in my defense, I had my last iPhone for 6 years until it wouldn’t accept updates anymore and became virtually unusable. And iPhones aren’t cheap!) Maybe we can stop buying cheap crap at The Dollar Store and Walmart, though Nordstrom sells items made in these camps too. We can try to find items that are made in the USA, which may cost more but probably don’t have as much human suffering attached to their manufacturing.
Cheap goods are a hard habit to break, and I doubt there are any easy answers to this problem. But if this book makes you think twice about buying “Made in China” goods, maybe put something back on the shelf because of it, then maybe slowly we can effect some change.
An absolute recommend.
February 27, 2021
At one level, this is a book about the political, economic, and human rights issues associated with China’s increasing use of prisoners as unpaid labor in the manufacture of cheap goods that are exported to other countries, in particular the US and European countries. The use of forced labor gives the Chinese significant cost advantages relative to non-Chinese firms, especially those that source labor from competitive labor markets. The focus is not just on unpaid prisoner labor, but unpaid labor by political prisoners, members of minority populations, or persecuted religious groups. The claim of journalist Amelia Pang is that this use of unpaid labor is increasing as China seeks to expand its influence in Central Asia and requires a policy responses at governmental levels and ethical responses by individual consumers considering Chinese purchases.
So far, so good. But what makes this book so engaging is that Ms. Pang ties the general plight of forced labor in China to the particular case of Sun Yi. He was a follower of the persecuted Falun Gong group who was taken into custody and sent to a labor camp because he would not renounce his beliefs. Facing a situation where he was likely to remain in the camp indefinitely, he wrote a series of notes/messages asking for help which he then placed in some of the products he was manufacturing - products that were then sent to the US. It was a plea for help, a message in a bottle, an SOS. One of these notes was discovered by Julie Keith, who noticed the message after having not opened the products for two years. She decided to follow-up on the message to see what could be done and what happened to Sun Yi. The publicity generated by this follow-up, along with some additional efforts by other camp survivors to document their experiences, is what permits Ms. Penguin to tie this heart breaking case to the broader problems related to unpaid labor (and worse) by prisoners of conscience.
It is an amazing and well told story. I had heard of these issues, especially in conjunction with China’s Silk Road initiative, but the presentation in this book is outstanding and the author is particularly good at highlighting the personal and family aspects of Mr. Yi’s struggles. It is also very readable..
So far, so good. But what makes this book so engaging is that Ms. Pang ties the general plight of forced labor in China to the particular case of Sun Yi. He was a follower of the persecuted Falun Gong group who was taken into custody and sent to a labor camp because he would not renounce his beliefs. Facing a situation where he was likely to remain in the camp indefinitely, he wrote a series of notes/messages asking for help which he then placed in some of the products he was manufacturing - products that were then sent to the US. It was a plea for help, a message in a bottle, an SOS. One of these notes was discovered by Julie Keith, who noticed the message after having not opened the products for two years. She decided to follow-up on the message to see what could be done and what happened to Sun Yi. The publicity generated by this follow-up, along with some additional efforts by other camp survivors to document their experiences, is what permits Ms. Penguin to tie this heart breaking case to the broader problems related to unpaid labor (and worse) by prisoners of conscience.
It is an amazing and well told story. I had heard of these issues, especially in conjunction with China’s Silk Road initiative, but the presentation in this book is outstanding and the author is particularly good at highlighting the personal and family aspects of Mr. Yi’s struggles. It is also very readable..
January 13, 2021
Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang is very highly recommended exposition on China's labor/reeducation camps, human rights violations, and how our consumerism is a tacit approval of the system.
Everyone should read this book. Everyone. And then reexamine their own involvement with cheap Chinese merchandise. Take note that if you buy something made in China it was likely made with slave labor. That should cause you to take pause in and of itself, but it becomes even more crucial to take action if you combine it with the fact that China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, and their rates are vastly under reported.
When Julie Keith opened up a package of cheap decorations in 2012, she discovered a plea for help written by the prisoner who made the items. The note was written by Sun Yi who was taken prisoner and put in a reeducation camp/ forced labor camp by the Chinese Communist Party. His crime was practicing Falun Gong with a religious meditation group.
Pang shares the life of Sun Yi, including the horrendous torture he and others endure in the "laogai system" which is the world’s largest forced-labor system. The system is rarely labeled as prisons, rather they call the camps reeducation centers or detoxification centers. No matter the name, they are still forced labor centers where people are sent at the whim of the CCP. The people in forced labor include the Falun Gong practitioners, as well as Christians, Turks, Muslim Uighurs, and Tibetans. Companies who get their products that are made with the forced slave labor from China never receive them directly from the prisons, instead they are exported and purchased through an import-export company system. It also appears that China is now in the business of organ selling. They get the medical information from the prisoners and will harvest their organs. The transplant industry in China is a billion dollar industry.
With modern AI surveillance technologies, the CCP is targeting even more people as they can identify them. Think about this information as you blindly follow any social media platform: "As early on as 2004, China has built the most extensive surveillance and internet censorship system in the world, with currently an estimated one hundred thousand human censors inspecting the web for politically sensitive content and manually deleting posts on various Chinese social media platforms. They are employed not only by state propaganda departments, but also by Chinese companies that have privatized censorship. And then there are the commenters, who are paid to guide online discussions in a pro-government direction. A 2017 Harvard study estimated that 448 million paid comments appear on Chinese social media every year." China is said to be one big modern, technologically savvy labor camp.
This is not an easy book to read but it is vital that people know what is going on in China. If people show any dissent in China, this is how they handle it - imprison them into forced labor. Pang immersed herself into Sun's story and that of other labor camp survivors over three years. Note that according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, "China’s accession to the WTO caused the United States to lose 3.4 million jobs. And as manufacturing migrated to China, it created more opportunities for Chinese factories to outsource work to labor camps." What we can do is limit how we spend our money and investigate the companies we buy from because China does respond to financial push back.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/0...
Everyone should read this book. Everyone. And then reexamine their own involvement with cheap Chinese merchandise. Take note that if you buy something made in China it was likely made with slave labor. That should cause you to take pause in and of itself, but it becomes even more crucial to take action if you combine it with the fact that China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, and their rates are vastly under reported.
When Julie Keith opened up a package of cheap decorations in 2012, she discovered a plea for help written by the prisoner who made the items. The note was written by Sun Yi who was taken prisoner and put in a reeducation camp/ forced labor camp by the Chinese Communist Party. His crime was practicing Falun Gong with a religious meditation group.
Pang shares the life of Sun Yi, including the horrendous torture he and others endure in the "laogai system" which is the world’s largest forced-labor system. The system is rarely labeled as prisons, rather they call the camps reeducation centers or detoxification centers. No matter the name, they are still forced labor centers where people are sent at the whim of the CCP. The people in forced labor include the Falun Gong practitioners, as well as Christians, Turks, Muslim Uighurs, and Tibetans. Companies who get their products that are made with the forced slave labor from China never receive them directly from the prisons, instead they are exported and purchased through an import-export company system. It also appears that China is now in the business of organ selling. They get the medical information from the prisoners and will harvest their organs. The transplant industry in China is a billion dollar industry.
With modern AI surveillance technologies, the CCP is targeting even more people as they can identify them. Think about this information as you blindly follow any social media platform: "As early on as 2004, China has built the most extensive surveillance and internet censorship system in the world, with currently an estimated one hundred thousand human censors inspecting the web for politically sensitive content and manually deleting posts on various Chinese social media platforms. They are employed not only by state propaganda departments, but also by Chinese companies that have privatized censorship. And then there are the commenters, who are paid to guide online discussions in a pro-government direction. A 2017 Harvard study estimated that 448 million paid comments appear on Chinese social media every year." China is said to be one big modern, technologically savvy labor camp.
This is not an easy book to read but it is vital that people know what is going on in China. If people show any dissent in China, this is how they handle it - imprison them into forced labor. Pang immersed herself into Sun's story and that of other labor camp survivors over three years. Note that according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, "China’s accession to the WTO caused the United States to lose 3.4 million jobs. And as manufacturing migrated to China, it created more opportunities for Chinese factories to outsource work to labor camps." What we can do is limit how we spend our money and investigate the companies we buy from because China does respond to financial push back.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/0...
November 14, 2020
This book is very interesting.
Most nonfiction is written in a way that feels dry, no matter how interesting the subject matter, but this book is almost suspiciously conversational and easy to focus on. And yet, it's clear that the author has done extensive research in addition to her extensive personal experience investigating the issue of Chinese labor camps.
I learned the word "laogai" here, which I'm embarrassed that I only recognized from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
This chronicle of human rights abuses is told in a personal way, through the story of a man who experienced arrest, forced labor, and torture himself. I had never heard of the Falun Gong before, either; I expected this book to feature much more on Xinjiang but, while the camps there are certainly discussed, most of this book's focus is on a system that preceded the more recent large-scale crackdown on the Uighurs.
Though it is unapologetically accusatory toward China, this book is also not blind to our own flaws, which I appreciated. It is terrifying to think about how many ordinary, unnecessary knick knacks on ordinary store shelves were made at the cost of some "disappeared" prisoner's literal blood, sweat, and tears.
Most nonfiction is written in a way that feels dry, no matter how interesting the subject matter, but this book is almost suspiciously conversational and easy to focus on. And yet, it's clear that the author has done extensive research in addition to her extensive personal experience investigating the issue of Chinese labor camps.
I learned the word "laogai" here, which I'm embarrassed that I only recognized from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
This chronicle of human rights abuses is told in a personal way, through the story of a man who experienced arrest, forced labor, and torture himself. I had never heard of the Falun Gong before, either; I expected this book to feature much more on Xinjiang but, while the camps there are certainly discussed, most of this book's focus is on a system that preceded the more recent large-scale crackdown on the Uighurs.
Though it is unapologetically accusatory toward China, this book is also not blind to our own flaws, which I appreciated. It is terrifying to think about how many ordinary, unnecessary knick knacks on ordinary store shelves were made at the cost of some "disappeared" prisoner's literal blood, sweat, and tears.
December 13, 2020
Warning- after reading this book you will feel differently when you reach for the cheapest holiday decor or cute ceramic knickknack. A Chinese man whose only "crime" was following the outlawed religion of Falun Gong is sent to a "reeducation camp" run by the Chinese government. There his life is much worse than any prison in the states. He sleeps head to feet with other prisoners in horrific unsanitary conditions and is made to work exhausting hours assembling electrical parts, holiday decor, stuffing goose feathers into clothing, and much more. If they do not keep up with the unrealistic schedules they are beaten, force-fed, and beaten again. In a heroic act that could have ended his life and others, he begins to write s.o.s notes and hiding them in the goods they are creating for the United States. This is the story of what happened when a woman in Oregon found one of those notes and tried to help. This amazing story of courage and an unspeakable horror is difficult to read and even more horrific is that it is still going on in many parts of the world. Anyone who is interested in world relations, manufacturing, and the economy or civil rights will get much out of this book. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
May 1, 2022
No wonder I don't read horror tales -- there are enough in non-fiction! If the forced labor and torture of dissidents wasn't bad enough, then came the chapter on organ harvesting. No need to wait years for a new organ. China provides them by the millions, fresh, with only a few days wait time. I'd heard of this but didn't know the extent of it till now.
Days after finishing the book, I'm still reeling from the shock. China's prison system is a gulag and many of the inmates are prisoners of conscience. Would we buy products made in Nazi concentration camps? Of course not! (I presume!) So why do we turn a blind eye to China's prison camps?
I will definitely research more of my purchases now, and try to find more made-in-USA products. No more cheap stuff. But China is the only source for many products, like microwave ovens, which are simply not made in the USA. A few years ago, I did manage to buy a new washing machine made in the U.S., and paid $900, rather than $700, though I think the other washers were made in South Korea which, to my knowledge, has no forced labor. But still...
How did this situation begin? In the 90s, I think. And who does it benefit? It fuels Americans' addiction to cheap stuff, poisons Chinese society with fear, and makes many corporations wealthy. Of course -- profits are the key! The book touched on this, but I'd like to read more. When did U.S. manufacturing go overseas and why?
I noted the author's praise for Gen Z and how these young people have less brand loyalty and love to go "thrifting." I had to smile, as my daughter is in Gen Z and she loves to go thrifting. This new generation may give us hope.
Highly recommended!
Days after finishing the book, I'm still reeling from the shock. China's prison system is a gulag and many of the inmates are prisoners of conscience. Would we buy products made in Nazi concentration camps? Of course not! (I presume!) So why do we turn a blind eye to China's prison camps?
I will definitely research more of my purchases now, and try to find more made-in-USA products. No more cheap stuff. But China is the only source for many products, like microwave ovens, which are simply not made in the USA. A few years ago, I did manage to buy a new washing machine made in the U.S., and paid $900, rather than $700, though I think the other washers were made in South Korea which, to my knowledge, has no forced labor. But still...
How did this situation begin? In the 90s, I think. And who does it benefit? It fuels Americans' addiction to cheap stuff, poisons Chinese society with fear, and makes many corporations wealthy. Of course -- profits are the key! The book touched on this, but I'd like to read more. When did U.S. manufacturing go overseas and why?
I noted the author's praise for Gen Z and how these young people have less brand loyalty and love to go "thrifting." I had to smile, as my daughter is in Gen Z and she loves to go thrifting. This new generation may give us hope.
Highly recommended!
March 19, 2021
Made in China is a great novel. It opened my mind to a whole lot of stuff that i wasn't aware of. Nasty stuff are happening in China and other countries and they aren't necessarily getting the publicity that they deserve.
February 3, 2021
The list of China’s human rights abuses is long. This isn’t new to most people. What’s unique about Amelia Pang’s *Made in China* is the depth to which she investigates and the clarity with which she explains what YOU can do. My review: https://t.co/xC72ePQJgX
January 24, 2021
QUOTES:
In the end, the Cultural Revolution killed millions and mangled China's economy. This is why modern mainland Chinese ideals tend to place higher value on social stability than human rights. The last thing people want is another revolution.
In the end, the Cultural Revolution killed millions and mangled China's economy. This is why modern mainland Chinese ideals tend to place higher value on social stability than human rights. The last thing people want is another revolution.
April 25, 2021
After reading this book, ‘Made in China’ is more than just a label. It’s the product of millions of innocent people that were thrown into labor camps. It’s the genocide of citizens from different beliefs by the China communist government. It’s the profits that conglomerates earned from the exploitation of prisoners.
This is a biography of Sun Yi, a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner that was captured into Masanjia Labor Camp for his belief. Falun Gong is a form of spiritual qigong practice that involves meditation, energy exercises and a set of moral principles derived from Taoism. It gains more than hundred of thousands followers in China during the ‘qigong bloom’ era in the 1980s. The communist government shortly banned Falun Gong after viewing it as a threat to the social system and caused huge demonstrations from its practitioners.
This book is an observation addressing the inhumane treatments of prisoners in the labor camps:
-They are force-fed, raped and electric shocks for ‘re-education’ purposes
- They work up to 15+ hours a day to manufacture items with little or no pay for international retails such as H&M, Nike, Walmart, Kmart and Amazon
- Some are murdered for organ harvestings, which explains the high number of organ donations in China
- Family members or closed ones are not allowed to visit them during their incarceration
It also shows important figures that contribute to strengthening this scenario: auditors that create fake data, conglomerates that act the fool when inquired about their source of mass production.
This book serves as an important reminder for us to be mindful of our buying behavior. Do we often purchase an item because we need it or only because it’s cheap? How many times did we impulse buy an item and quickly forgot about it?
Eventually, each of us is contributing to this vicious chain.
Rating: 5 stars
This is a biography of Sun Yi, a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner that was captured into Masanjia Labor Camp for his belief. Falun Gong is a form of spiritual qigong practice that involves meditation, energy exercises and a set of moral principles derived from Taoism. It gains more than hundred of thousands followers in China during the ‘qigong bloom’ era in the 1980s. The communist government shortly banned Falun Gong after viewing it as a threat to the social system and caused huge demonstrations from its practitioners.
This book is an observation addressing the inhumane treatments of prisoners in the labor camps:
-They are force-fed, raped and electric shocks for ‘re-education’ purposes
- They work up to 15+ hours a day to manufacture items with little or no pay for international retails such as H&M, Nike, Walmart, Kmart and Amazon
- Some are murdered for organ harvestings, which explains the high number of organ donations in China
- Family members or closed ones are not allowed to visit them during their incarceration
It also shows important figures that contribute to strengthening this scenario: auditors that create fake data, conglomerates that act the fool when inquired about their source of mass production.
This book serves as an important reminder for us to be mindful of our buying behavior. Do we often purchase an item because we need it or only because it’s cheap? How many times did we impulse buy an item and quickly forgot about it?
Eventually, each of us is contributing to this vicious chain.
Rating: 5 stars
April 1, 2021
My excitement to read the book wasn't quite met by the experience but the message is strong and I'd recommend the book to most readers.
The idea of an SOS letter in a bag of cheap Halloween decorations is so intriguing. I don't think I've ever paused to try to imagine the people who've made the countless consumer goods I've used and this book reveals the depressing truths about forced labor (and more) under the CCP. The book succeeds in laying out the systems of abuse and the reasoning behind the CCP's animus towards Falun Gong and ethnic minorities but it was almost a little too clinical in telling the stories. It may be that I've read enough books about human rights abuses and torture to dim the visceral impacts but I did occasionally wonder how different authors would have presented the material. In any event the story of Sun Yi is important, inspiring and thought provoking and well worth my time to read it.
The idea of an SOS letter in a bag of cheap Halloween decorations is so intriguing. I don't think I've ever paused to try to imagine the people who've made the countless consumer goods I've used and this book reveals the depressing truths about forced labor (and more) under the CCP. The book succeeds in laying out the systems of abuse and the reasoning behind the CCP's animus towards Falun Gong and ethnic minorities but it was almost a little too clinical in telling the stories. It may be that I've read enough books about human rights abuses and torture to dim the visceral impacts but I did occasionally wonder how different authors would have presented the material. In any event the story of Sun Yi is important, inspiring and thought provoking and well worth my time to read it.
April 6, 2021
In 2012, a woman in Oregon opened a box of plastic Halloween decorations purchased from a big box store for a family party. This was a scene so mundane and unremarkable that it was likely to have instantly disappeared from her memory had a sheet of paper that had been secreted inside the box not fallen out. The paper, written in both Chinese and English, was a letter for help from a forced-labor prison in China where the decorations had been made.
There is a grim story behind so many of the inexpensive, mass-produced products we all buy and use; items both necessary and frivolous, including clothing, toys, office supplies, pet products, decorations, and knickknacks. Some of these items are made by inmates of Chinese prisons who have no choice in the matter—and they may be imprisoned for such “offenses” as being members of a disliked religious or ethnic group.
Better regulations of imported products can help, but as this book meticulously details, there are circuitous ways for unethical manufacturers to bypass these laws and still get their products into American and European markets. Also, not discussed as much in this book but still worth considering, is the fact that big corporations aren’t going to be on board with making a large chunk of their inventory more expensive or difficult to get, and will no doubt lobby heavily against “too effective” bills.
Nor should we rely too heavily upon future generations to make things right. The book favorably cites the apparent preference teens and twentysomethings have for transparent sourcing and accountability, but I’d like to add that every new generation is pronounced to be world-changing and unlike the ones that proceeded it. Some problems do get better as each new group comes of age—but others stay the same or get worse. Today’s young people may indeed want to do better, but they’re also carrying incredible debt and facing an employment wasteland—they simply may not be able to afford all of those locally-made, transparently-sourced items they’d prefer to buy.
Honestly, reading this book made me never want to buy anything ever again. In practice, this is, of course, impossible. However, something I can do—something we all can do—is make do with the things we have and stop buying new things unless we really need them, or getting them secondhand.
There is a grim story behind so many of the inexpensive, mass-produced products we all buy and use; items both necessary and frivolous, including clothing, toys, office supplies, pet products, decorations, and knickknacks. Some of these items are made by inmates of Chinese prisons who have no choice in the matter—and they may be imprisoned for such “offenses” as being members of a disliked religious or ethnic group.
Better regulations of imported products can help, but as this book meticulously details, there are circuitous ways for unethical manufacturers to bypass these laws and still get their products into American and European markets. Also, not discussed as much in this book but still worth considering, is the fact that big corporations aren’t going to be on board with making a large chunk of their inventory more expensive or difficult to get, and will no doubt lobby heavily against “too effective” bills.
Nor should we rely too heavily upon future generations to make things right. The book favorably cites the apparent preference teens and twentysomethings have for transparent sourcing and accountability, but I’d like to add that every new generation is pronounced to be world-changing and unlike the ones that proceeded it. Some problems do get better as each new group comes of age—but others stay the same or get worse. Today’s young people may indeed want to do better, but they’re also carrying incredible debt and facing an employment wasteland—they simply may not be able to afford all of those locally-made, transparently-sourced items they’d prefer to buy.
Honestly, reading this book made me never want to buy anything ever again. In practice, this is, of course, impossible. However, something I can do—something we all can do—is make do with the things we have and stop buying new things unless we really need them, or getting them secondhand.
April 21, 2022
A very disturbing read. It was a bit more biographical than I expected, focusing mainly on one specific man. Parts of it were incredibly difficult to listen to, but I am glad that I read it. I knew that China's manufacturing policies were bad but I didn't understand how bad. The state-sanctioned organ harvesting program was particularly upsetting.
I will be checking "made in" labels for future purchases.
I will be checking "made in" labels for future purchases.
April 27, 2022
Like many of you, the last few years I’ve tried extra hard to avoid buying products made in China. It’s quite a challenge. Most websites hide the country of origin and the only way to get that information is to dig through consumer questions or call the company. After reading Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods, I’ve become even more zealous in doing my due diligence before handing over my greenbacks.
In 2012, a woman in Oregon purchased a package of cheap foam headstones at Kmart. When she opened the box, an SOS note written in broken English fell out:
“Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, an engineer named Sun Yi, was a Chinese political prisoner, sentenced without trial to work grueling hours at a “reeducation camp.” In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him—followers of banned religions and spiritual movements, political prisoners; ethnic minorities; migrant workers; and juvenile and adult offenders who are imprisoned, tortured, and subjugated. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reporting, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s addiction to cheap goods.
“… the reasons Chinese suppliers subcontract to forced laborers lead straight to global consumers: to us and the way we buy. In our ceaseless search for the cheapest and the most current design, technology, flavor, or appliance, we reward the companies that offer the lowest prices and sell the latest trends. The most profitable retailers in every industry are the ones that meet these demands.” ~ Amelia Pang, Made in China.
Made in China is a well-researched and sobering exposé on the laogai system of forced-labor camps. Here are some disturbing things I learned:
• The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothing arrives at a landfill every second.
• There is mounting evidence that laogai camps not only supply free manufacturing labor but also human organs for the nation’s booming transplant industry, which is estimated to be worth a billion dollars.
• According to the author, many large US retailers—including Amazon, Nordstrom, Kmart, Walmart, and Target—sell products manufactured in forced-labor camps.
• Concentration-like camps in the Xinjiang region detain approximately three million Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims.
• Global brands use the labor of workers held against their will. The author mentioned Nike, Apple, BMW, H&M, and American Girl.
The scale of the forced labor in China is massive and deeply disturbing. What is happening there is pure evil. Made in China wasn’t an easy read, but it was an important one. Like me, you may change your shopping habits. We need to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize. 5 stars.
Publication Date: February 2021
Genre: Nonfiction, politics and global affairs.
Read-alikes: China Shakes the World: a Titan’s Breakneck Rise and Troubled Future and the Challenge for America by James Kynge; The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership by Clyde V. Prestowitz; The Myth of Chinese Capitalism by Dexter Roberts; Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers by Jenny Chan; Invisible Hands by Corinne Goria.
In 2012, a woman in Oregon purchased a package of cheap foam headstones at Kmart. When she opened the box, an SOS note written in broken English fell out:
“Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, an engineer named Sun Yi, was a Chinese political prisoner, sentenced without trial to work grueling hours at a “reeducation camp.” In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him—followers of banned religions and spiritual movements, political prisoners; ethnic minorities; migrant workers; and juvenile and adult offenders who are imprisoned, tortured, and subjugated. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reporting, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s addiction to cheap goods.
“… the reasons Chinese suppliers subcontract to forced laborers lead straight to global consumers: to us and the way we buy. In our ceaseless search for the cheapest and the most current design, technology, flavor, or appliance, we reward the companies that offer the lowest prices and sell the latest trends. The most profitable retailers in every industry are the ones that meet these demands.” ~ Amelia Pang, Made in China.
Made in China is a well-researched and sobering exposé on the laogai system of forced-labor camps. Here are some disturbing things I learned:
• The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothing arrives at a landfill every second.
• There is mounting evidence that laogai camps not only supply free manufacturing labor but also human organs for the nation’s booming transplant industry, which is estimated to be worth a billion dollars.
• According to the author, many large US retailers—including Amazon, Nordstrom, Kmart, Walmart, and Target—sell products manufactured in forced-labor camps.
• Concentration-like camps in the Xinjiang region detain approximately three million Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims.
• Global brands use the labor of workers held against their will. The author mentioned Nike, Apple, BMW, H&M, and American Girl.
The scale of the forced labor in China is massive and deeply disturbing. What is happening there is pure evil. Made in China wasn’t an easy read, but it was an important one. Like me, you may change your shopping habits. We need to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize. 5 stars.
Publication Date: February 2021
Genre: Nonfiction, politics and global affairs.
Read-alikes: China Shakes the World: a Titan’s Breakneck Rise and Troubled Future and the Challenge for America by James Kynge; The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership by Clyde V. Prestowitz; The Myth of Chinese Capitalism by Dexter Roberts; Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers by Jenny Chan; Invisible Hands by Corinne Goria.
February 28, 2021
"If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.
She was bewildered. Is this a prank? she thought. She kept reading.
This product produced by Unit 8, Department 2, Mashanjia Labour Camp, Shenyang, Liaoning, China. (中國,遼寧,瀋陽,馬 三家勞動教養院二所八大隊) People who work here, have to work 15 hours a day with out Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays, otherwise, they will suffer torturement (酷刑折磨), beat and rude remark (打罵體罰虐待), no nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month). People who work here, suffer punishment nearly 1~3 years averagelly, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment) (非法勞教). Many of them are Falun gong practitioner, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG (中共政府), they often suffer more punishment than others..."
The story told in Made in China begins with this letter, found by Oregon resident Julie Keith in October 2012 in the packaging of a Halloween decoration purchased at Kmart. The note was written by a Chinese man named Sun Yi, who would be forced into a Chinese Gulag-style labour camp for campaigning for the freedom to join the forbidden meditation movement, Fulong Gong.
Author Amelia Pang's investigative reporting tells the incredible saga of Sun Yi's life here.
Amelia Pang is an award-winning, investigative journalist of Uyghur descent. Her work has been published in The New Republic, Mother Jones, and The New York Times Sunday Review, among other publications. She is currently an editor at EdTech Magazine.
Amelia Pang:
The story of the often horrifying conditions of life under the Chinese Communist Party - or CCP will likely shock and appall the average Western reader of this book.
After Mao Zedong seized power in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949, he declared China to be the People's Republic of China; a Communist state, forcing Chiang Kai-shek's ruling Kuomintang government to retreat to the island of Taiwan.
Mao established a system of forced-labour camps, know as "Laogai" , modeled after Soviet Gulags to squash political dissidents, bolster the faultering socialist economy, and acheive "reeducation through labor."
Pang also covers the Falun Gong movement here in some detail. The CCP does not like ideological competition, and has imprisoned members of the quasi-religious sect.
Falun Gong members have also been subjected to forced labour in the Laogais, and even more appalling - been executed to have their organs harvested on-demand. A practice that may have been put in place as early as the early 90's, notes Pang.
Pang covers some of the evidence for this practice here.
Made in China tells the reader of the horrific conditions of life inside the Laogai, noting that women often face harsher treatment by the guards:
The CCP also strictly clamps down on the social discourse of its citizenry, famously establishing its own separate internet, complete with a cadre of online censors and ideological enforcers. Pang writes:
The story of Sun Yi, as told here by Pang, has a somewhat mixed ending, that I'll cover with a spoiler, to avoid giving anything away.
Made in China is an important book, that pulls back the curtain on the atrocious anti-human machinations of the CCP. As such, this book and the stories in it should be read by everyone who has the opportunity to do so.
5 stars.
She was bewildered. Is this a prank? she thought. She kept reading.
This product produced by Unit 8, Department 2, Mashanjia Labour Camp, Shenyang, Liaoning, China. (中國,遼寧,瀋陽,馬 三家勞動教養院二所八大隊) People who work here, have to work 15 hours a day with out Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays, otherwise, they will suffer torturement (酷刑折磨), beat and rude remark (打罵體罰虐待), no nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month). People who work here, suffer punishment nearly 1~3 years averagelly, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment) (非法勞教). Many of them are Falun gong practitioner, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG (中共政府), they often suffer more punishment than others..."
The story told in Made in China begins with this letter, found by Oregon resident Julie Keith in October 2012 in the packaging of a Halloween decoration purchased at Kmart. The note was written by a Chinese man named Sun Yi, who would be forced into a Chinese Gulag-style labour camp for campaigning for the freedom to join the forbidden meditation movement, Fulong Gong.
Author Amelia Pang's investigative reporting tells the incredible saga of Sun Yi's life here.
Amelia Pang is an award-winning, investigative journalist of Uyghur descent. Her work has been published in The New Republic, Mother Jones, and The New York Times Sunday Review, among other publications. She is currently an editor at EdTech Magazine.
Amelia Pang:
The story of the often horrifying conditions of life under the Chinese Communist Party - or CCP will likely shock and appall the average Western reader of this book.
After Mao Zedong seized power in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949, he declared China to be the People's Republic of China; a Communist state, forcing Chiang Kai-shek's ruling Kuomintang government to retreat to the island of Taiwan.
Mao established a system of forced-labour camps, know as "Laogai" , modeled after Soviet Gulags to squash political dissidents, bolster the faultering socialist economy, and acheive "reeducation through labor."
Pang also covers the Falun Gong movement here in some detail. The CCP does not like ideological competition, and has imprisoned members of the quasi-religious sect.
Falun Gong members have also been subjected to forced labour in the Laogais, and even more appalling - been executed to have their organs harvested on-demand. A practice that may have been put in place as early as the early 90's, notes Pang.
Pang covers some of the evidence for this practice here.
Made in China tells the reader of the horrific conditions of life inside the Laogai, noting that women often face harsher treatment by the guards:
"Historically, and presently, the women at Masanjia experienced arguably worse torture and degradation than men. The guards would jam and twistng toothbrushes up women’s vaginas, pour chili powder into their genitals, and shock their breasts with electric batons. Then they gang-raped their victims, who often vomited blood afterward.The CCP is the worst human-rights violator in the world today; meting out torture and misery to the citizens of its own country on a wholesale level.
A female Masanjia survivor named Yin Liping described her sexual assault:
As I woke from unconsciousness, I noticed three men lying beside me. One was on my left, and two were on my right. A young man close to my right was groping my body all over with his hands. He looked like he was younger than 20 years old. The other man behind him was also busy groping me with his hands. The man on my left kept touching my face and held his leg against my private parts. Then I felt, above my head, there was another man sitting there.
He kept touching my face and my head. Two men stood below me facing the gap between my legs. One was videotaping while the other one watched. They kept talking dirty. I didn’t know how many others were there. They were tickling my feet and laughing. . . . I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. . . . The next day, I was beaten by a male inmate. That night, I was gang-raped, just as I had been the night before. We don���t know how we survived . . . Even now, years later, I tremble when I think about it..."
The CCP also strictly clamps down on the social discourse of its citizenry, famously establishing its own separate internet, complete with a cadre of online censors and ideological enforcers. Pang writes:
"Since as early as 2004, China has built the most extensive surveillance and internet censorship system in the world, with currently an estimated one hundred thousand human censors inspecting the web for politically sensitive content and manually deleting posts on various Chinese social media platforms. They are employed not only by state propaganda departments, but also by Chinese companies that have privatized censorship.
And then there are the commenters, who are paid to guide online discussions in a pro-government direction. A 2017 Harvard study estimated that 448 million paid comments appear on Chinese social media every year.
Although it can be difficult to navigate the maze of propaganda on the Chinese internet, activists have had some online success rallying people against labor camps..."
The story of Sun Yi, as told here by Pang, has a somewhat mixed ending, that I'll cover with a spoiler, to avoid giving anything away.
Made in China is an important book, that pulls back the curtain on the atrocious anti-human machinations of the CCP. As such, this book and the stories in it should be read by everyone who has the opportunity to do so.
5 stars.
May 6, 2021
Compared to The Secret Life of Groceries, I thought this book on the use of forced labor in China felt lighter in style - almost more like a memoir than a work of investigative journalism. That was in stark contrast to the subject matter, which was actually even more brutal. There are a few descriptions of torture in this book and it focuses unrelentingly on the inhumane 'reform through labor' system in China. I had already heard about at least the most horrifying bit before reading this book. However, I had thought/hoped that stories of China killing prisoners for organ harvesting were just dystopian conspiracy theories. This book provides strong evidence to the contrary.
It was a more personal story, focused on a single political prisoner, Sun Yi, who managed to sneak a letter into products he made that were then sent to the US. However, this story did also reveal systematic problems. The largest of these problems within the US is the reluctance of US companies and law makers to impose tighter regulation on Chinese imports. This has resulted in a byzantine, nearly impossible set of requirements for having Chinese products banned due to the use of forced labor. Something that made this book a little more hopeful than the previous one is that the author provided specific steps individuals can take to help combat this problem. These included pressuring both companies and law makers to adopt better practices. I know having read this book will influence how I buy in the future. While I didn't 'enjoy' (always a weird word for such heavy topics) this book as much as the previous one, it easier to make changes in my life because of having read it. I'm primarily glad I read it because I can now be a better educated, more ethical consumer of good in the US.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
It was a more personal story, focused on a single political prisoner, Sun Yi, who managed to sneak a letter into products he made that were then sent to the US. However, this story did also reveal systematic problems. The largest of these problems within the US is the reluctance of US companies and law makers to impose tighter regulation on Chinese imports. This has resulted in a byzantine, nearly impossible set of requirements for having Chinese products banned due to the use of forced labor. Something that made this book a little more hopeful than the previous one is that the author provided specific steps individuals can take to help combat this problem. These included pressuring both companies and law makers to adopt better practices. I know having read this book will influence how I buy in the future. While I didn't 'enjoy' (always a weird word for such heavy topics) this book as much as the previous one, it easier to make changes in my life because of having read it. I'm primarily glad I read it because I can now be a better educated, more ethical consumer of good in the US.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
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