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Among the goods produced by Chinese Christians imprisoned in the laogai are the Christmas decorations sold by many American retail stores every Christmas season. "Let there be no mistake about it — China persecutes Christians," Wu declared. "Yet it is the largest manufacturer and exporter of Christmas products to the United States."

But the export of laogai goods is hardly a seasonal enterprise. "According to the Chinese government itself, 200 different kinds of laogai products are exported to the international market," stated Wu. Describing the laogai system as "an integral part of the national economy," Wu has documented that "one third of China’s tea is produced in laogai camps; sixty percent of China’s rubber vulcanizing chemicals are produced in a single laogai camp in Shenyang; the first and second chain hoists to receive direct export authority are laogai camps in Zhijiang Province; one of the largest and earliest exporters of hand tools is a camp in Shanghai; an unknown but significant pipe works in the country is a laogai camp...." Another illustration of the economic role played by the laogai system is found in the recent discovery that "auto components from the Beijing laogai were being used at the Beijing Jeep joint venture involving Chrysler."

From 1998

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a400387.htm

A prisoner's food rations are determined by how much he or she works.

Juvenile prisoners are forced to labor

Making use of laogai-produced raw materials and components does help U.S.-based transnational corporations "drive cost curves down," as do the miniscule wage costs offered by the slave-labor conditions that prevail outside the Chinese gulag. Collaboration with Beijing’s communist elite offers opportunities for exploitation never dreamed of in Karl Marx’s rhetoric. But U.S.-based corporations bent on exploiting the Chinese people also exploit U.S. taxpayers by forcing them to subsidize their ventures. Through the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, corporate investments in China are subsidized, and any losses incurred are socialized — while the profits remain private and legitimate market competition is undermined.

The Ex-Im Bank was created during the New Deal essentially as a means to underwrite corporate investment in the Soviet Union. Since that time it has expanded to offer loan guarantees for corporate projects throughout the world. Under the Trade Act of 1974, "nonmarket economy countries" such as Communist China are denied access to "programs of credits, credit guarantees, [and] investment guarantees" if most favored nation (MFN) status is revoked. This is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and nearly the entire Fortune 500 have been perennial supporters of MFN renewal for China, and why the same constellation of corporate interests favors extending to Beijing membership in the World Trade Organization, which would in essence grant it permanent MFN status.

An Ex-Im fact sheet explains that the bank "exists to support U.S. exporters in making sales to foreign buyers. It does this by filling the gap where private sector export financing is inadequate or unavailable" — that is, it forces taxpayers to underwrite loans the private sector wouldn’t touch. Ex-Im also admits that Red China is its "largest market in Asia" — much to the delight of Beijing’s commissars and their corporate fellow travelers.

Typical of Ex-Im’s American corporate beneficiaries is former congressman and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who is now CEO of the Texas-based Halliburton energy conglomerate (which has several significant projects underway in China). In a May 8, 1997 speech to an Ex-Im conference in Washington, DC, Cheney declared that Ex-Im helps "U.S. businesses blend private sector resources with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." It is doubtful that Mussolini could have provided a clearer description of the corporate state. Of course, not a single penny appropriated for Ex-Im is authorized by the Constitution — a point Cheney, the self-styled "fiscal conservative," declined to address.

Disdainfully denouncing those who criticize Ex-Im for practicing "so-called corporate welfare," Cheney sniffed, "They obviously don’t know that for every dollar appropriated to the Bank in the last five years, Ex-Im has returned approximately 20 dollars worth of exports." Admittedly, this arrangement is profitable for the corporations who receive the taxpayer subsidies; how this justifies extorting money from taxpayers, Cheney did not explain.

In 1996, Ex-Im extended at least $900 million in direct loans and $1.2 billion in loan guarantees to underwrite corporate deals in China. Addressing those who contend that "Ex-Im Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business," Cheney insisted that "more than 80 percent of Ex-Im Bank’s transactions financed small business exports" in 1996. While this might be technically correct, it still doesn’t change the fact that the Constitution does not authorize export subsidies for businesses of any size. Furthermore, Cheney’s characterization of Ex-Im as an ally of small business investment is difficult to sustain in light of the fact that its prominent clients in 1996 included such "mom and pop" outfits as General Electric, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas (since consolidated with Boeing), Westinghouse, Bechtel, and Texaco.

Furthermore, Ex-Im lavished taxpayer-subsidized loans most generously on projects that helped build China’s energy infrastructure. Westinghouse received a direct loan of $36,347,390 to produce steam turbines for the Qinshan II nuclear power plant. General Electric benefited from a $260,116,302 direct loan to provide turbine generators for the Nantong II power plant. Siemens was awarded a $47,456,071 direct loan to help construct the Fuzhou 2X35 OMU power plant. The Qinshan III nuclear power plant was built with the help of a $20 million loan guarantee for Houston’s Stone & Webster International Projects Corporation and a direct loan of $383,133,959 to Overseas Bechtel. And the New Jersey-based Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation was treated to a taxpayer-guaranteed direct loan of $408,822, 539 to provide coal-fired boilers for the Yangcheng Power Plant.

Significantly, the three largest direct loans — those granted to Foster Wheeler, Overseas Bechtel, and General Electric — were approved by Ex-Im following a "Presidential National Interest Determination." Bill Clinton granted those determinations at a time when his re-election effort was awash in illegal Chinese campaign contributions.

Not surprisingly, the list of Ex-Im clients for China ventures overlays quite nicely with the roster of Beijing’s corporate lobbyists. Boeing, which received $332.7 million in Ex-Im subsidies in 1996, was a corporate member of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) and the Business Coalition for U.S.-China Trade, in addition to being the corporate co-founder of the U.S.-China Educational Foundation (USCEF). General Electric ($260.1 million in Ex-Im subsidies) also helped create the USCEF and is a member of the USCBC; Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation ($408.8 million from Ex-Im) is also a USCBC member, as are Texaco and Westinghouse. Bechtel is a member of USA-ENGAGE, which describes MFN for China as "a means of encouraging positive change in China and ensuring freedom for Hong Kong."

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no16/vo14no16_corporate.htm