ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the contemporary Chinese penal system has drawn on a legacy which is both indigenous and imported. It discusses the influences that have helped frame the labor and thought reform programs within the prison and examines the problems the programs have encountered in the period of economic reform after 1978. Contemporary mainland Chinese texts on economic activity within the penal sector make clear the high valuation Chinese Marxism places on the concept of labor as transformative. The use of penal labor in contemporary China is therefore more than the recruitment of a slave labor force as Harry Wu suggests; it also includes a belief in the cognitive value of labor in bringing forth human transformation. Face makes the Chinese reintegrative strategy of ganhua possible, but face will also demand its revenge should the method falter.
