[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2195 Introduced in House (IH)]







105th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2195

 To provide for certain measures to increase monitoring of products of 
    the People's Republic of China that are made with forced labor.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 17, 1997

   Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Cox of California, Mr. 
    Gilman, Mr. Spence, Mr. Solomon, Mr. Shadegg, Mr. McIntosh, Mr. 
Rohrabacher, Mr. Gibbons, and Mr. Sam Johnson of Texas) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, 
  and in addition to the Committee on International Relations, for a 
 period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
                          committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide for certain measures to increase monitoring of products of 
    the People's Republic of China that are made with forced labor.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Laogai Slave Labor Products Act of 
1997''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) The People's Republic of China operates and maintains 
        an extensive forced labor camp system--the Laogai.
            (2) The Laogai is made up of more than 1,100 forced labor 
        camps, with an estimated population of 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 
        prisoners.
            (3) In one part of the Laogai system, known as laojiao, or 
        reeducation-through-labor, Chinese citizens can be detained for 
        up to 3 years without any judicial review or formal appearance 
        in the judicial system.
            (4) The Laogai is an integral sector of the export economy 
        of the People's Republic of China and is engaged in the export 
        to the United States of the goods made by forced labor.
            (5) The Government of the People's Republic of China 
        actively promotes the forced labor camps by employing a system 
        of dual names for the camps to deceive the international 
        community.
            (6) The United States Customs Service has taken formal 
        administrative action banning the importation of 27 different 
        products found to have been made in the Laogai.
            (7) Despite the fact that the People's Republic of China 
        has entered into binding agreements with the United States (the 
        1992 Memorandum of Understanding on Prison Labor, and the 1994 
        Statement of Cooperation on the Implementation of the 
        Memorandum of Understanding on Prison Labor) to allow 
        inspections of its forced labor camps to determine the origins 
        of suspected Laogai imports to the United States, the People's 
        Republic of China has frustrated the implementation of these 
        agreements.
            (8) The State Department's Human Rights Country Reports in 
        1995 and 1996 each stated, ``Repeated delays in arranging 
        prison labor site visits called into question Chinese 
        intentions regarding the implementation of'' the two agreements 
        referred to in paragraph (7).
            (9) Concerning the ability of the United States Customs 
        Service to identify Communist Chinese products that originate 
        in the Laogai, Commissioner of Customs George J. Weise stated 
        in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 
        May 22, 1997: ``We simply do not have the tools within our 
        present arsenal at Customs to gain the timely and in-depth 
        verification that we need.''.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR ADDITIONAL CUSTOMS AND STATE DEPARTMENT 
              PERSONNEL TO MONITOR EXPORTATION OF SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS 
              BY THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

    There are authorized to be appropriated for monitoring by the 
United States Customs Service and the Department of State of the 
exportation by the People's Republic of China to the United States of 
products made with slave labor, the importation of which violates 
section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 or section 1761 of title 18, 
United States Code, $2,000,000 for fiscal year 1998 and $2,000,000 for 
fiscal year 1999.

SEC. 4. REPORTING REQUIREMENT ON EXPORTATION OF SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS BY 
              THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

    (a) Report to Congress.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
the enactment of this Act and annually thereafter, the Commissioner of 
Customs and the Secretary of State shall each prepare and transmit to 
the Congress reports on the manufacturing and exportation of products 
made with slave labor in the People's Republic of China.
    (b) Contents of Report.--Each report under subsection (a) shall 
include information concerning the following:
            (1) The extent of the use of slave labor in manufacturing 
        products for exportation by the People's Republic of China, as 
        well as the volume of exports of such slave labor products by 
        that country.
            (2) The progress of the United States Government in 
        identifying products made with slave labor in the People's 
        Republic of China that are destined for the United States 
        market in violation of section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 or 
        section 1761 of title 18, United States Code, and in stemming 
        the importation of those products.

SEC. 5. RENEGOTIATION OF THE MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON PRISON 
              LABOR WITH THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

    It is the sense of the Congress that, since the People's Republic 
of China has substantially frustrated the purposes of the 1992 
Memorandum of Understanding with the United States on Prison Labor, the 
President should immediately commence negotiations to replace the 
current Memorandum of Understanding on Prison Labor with one providing 
for effective monitoring of forced labor in the People's Republic of 
China, without restrictions on which prison labor camps international 
monitors may visit.
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