Introduction

On June 19, 1995, Chinese authorities arrested American citizen Harry Wu on charges of spying, an act punishable by death. Wu, a Chinese-born human rights activist, had entered China to investigate human rights abuses in the communist nation's laogai (prison system). During previous trips to China, Wu had gathered evidence of what he alleged was slave labor by approximately ten million prisoners at more than one thousand forced labor camps, including the manufacture of goods exported to America. For nineteen years, Wu himself had been imprisoned in the laogai for criticizing China's support of the Soviet Union's 1956 invasion of Hungary.

Following Wu's arrest, human rights activists and the U.S. government protested vehemently and demanded Wu's immediate release. According to the Washington Post, the filing of criminal charges against Wu amounted to "a test of the whole relationship between the United States and China." On August 24, 1995, China relented and...