Review by Choice Review
This volume by Pang, an investigative journalist, attempts to probe the factors of China's present reality that have hastened production speeds and enabled American consumerism. Over 19 chapters, the book seeks to illustrate the true cost of the cheap goods that the US imports from China, while raising questions and demanding answers from the companies readers patronize. Through an overview of the political history, cultural prejudice, and economic factors behind China's system of "reeducation through labor," the author explores loopholes in US laws that might otherwise prevent the import of goods from reeducation camps. Pang suggests that American consumers' ongoing quest for cheap products creates an incentive for the camps' brutal labor practices to persist. She believes that "we can use our spending power to limit how much an authoritarian government will profit from the abuse of prisoners of conscience and ethnic minorities," arguing that "without high-volume orders from foreign companies, perhaps there will be fewer arbitrary arrests to help prison factories meet production quotas." A prologue, epilogue, and endnotes round out the text. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels. --Stephen K. Ma, emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Journalist Pang tells the story of the hidden cost of Chinese goods through mysterious hidden messages and labor camp trucks. She follows Sun Yi, a Chinese engineer who placed a help message in Halloween decorations that ended up in the hands of a woman in the U.S., who then worked to get amnesty organizations to act on Yi's behalf. Yi was a political prisoner for practicing mediation and championing the right to do so, and Pang exposes the conditions of his encampment and how the government tried to reeducate him through 15-plus-hour days of labor producing consumer goods. These products were sold cheaply around the globe, notably to the United States. Pang interviewed Yi extensively, documenting his tales of torture and abuse. As she delves deeper into his and others' stories, she uncovers the truth about labor camps and the Chinese government's attempts to hide the reality. Readers will be drawn into this thoroughly researched narrative and will be awakened by the author's pleas for consumers to be more vigilant about the origin of their goods.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Pang debuts with a vivid and powerful report on Chinese forced labor camps and their connections to the American marketplace. She spotlights the story of political prisoner Sun Yi, a follower of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, who inserted handwritten notes into the boxes of Halloween decorations he packaged at a camp in northeastern China. In 2012, two years after Sun's release, an Oregon woman found one of his notes in a box of foam gravestones. The resulting media coverage led to widespread condemnation of China's labor practices, Pang writes, but only superficial changes. Her cinematic narrative alternates between Sun's traumatic experiences and an overview of the political history, cultural prejudices, and economic factors behind China's system of "reeducation through labor." She also explores loopholes in U.S. laws that might otherwise prevent imports from the camps, and how American consumers searching for cheap products and the latest trends create an incentive for China to continue its brutal labor practices. Noting that China responds to "financial pushback," she urges consumers to hold their favorite brands to account for the conditions under which their goods are produced. Engrossing and deeply reported, this impressive exposé will make readers think twice about their next purchase. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Investigative journalist Pang uses her Los Angeles Press Club-honored skills to show that many of the cheap products America gets from China are made in labor camps. The story starts with a prisoner's handwritten plea for help (in broken English), found by an Oregon woman in a package of Halloween decorations, and moves to our meeting the prisoner--an engineer jailed for joining forbidden meditation practices.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
If a product is made in China, this book reveals, it's likely made by prisoners. Pang's story beings with an Oregon woman who, while opening a package of foam headstones for Halloween decorations, discovered a note written on onionskin paper describing the plight of prisoners in a labor camp in China: "People who work here, have to work 15 hours a day with out [sic] Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays, otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark, nearly no payment." The note also pointed out that many of the prisoners were members of Falun Gong, a group that added a religious--and then dissident--element to the traditional practice of qi gong. From that starting point, Pang describes not just the fate of the writer of that note--one of many that consumers in the West discovered in packages containing Chinese-made goods--but also the astonishingly comprehensive and oppressive Chinese penal system. Of that writer, blameless apart from his criticism of the government, Pang observes, "I felt that [his] fight for freedom and his subsequent imprisonment was emblematic of a much broader human rights issue, which extends beyond Falun Gong." Indeed, the "laogai system" is the world's "largest forced-labor system," embracing labor camps, outright prisons, and even drug rehab centers; those who are sentenced to "reeducation through labor" have no recourse to courts but are sentenced at the whim of public security officials. The system is now being extended to include millions of people whose only crime is to have been born into the minority Uighur population. Pang notes that the laogai system produces goods that are staples of such vendors as Walmart and Amazon, only some of which monitor their suppliers for human rights violations. She suggests a system to certify that goods are laogai free: "Until there is such a label, perhaps we can reduce unnecessary consumption"--good advice in and of itself. A powerful argument for heightened awareness of the high price of Chinese-made products. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
