Wu has identified 1,100 or so camps. Every totalitarian regime needs a system of repression, he has written, and that includes a prison system. These are never normal prisons. Hitler had forced labor camps, concentration camps, and extermination camps. Stalin had the gulag.
China has the most extensive forced labor camp system in the world today.
As indicated in an article in The New American for July 10th, the Red Chinese were sure to extract revenge on the U.S. for its piddling act of allowing President Lee Teng-hui of the Republic of China on Taiwan to speak at his college reunion at Cornell, his alma mater. As you recall, the White House wanted no part of this but was shamed by Congress into doing at least this much. And Beijing did react, not only putting off various meetings, but also recalling its ambassador from Washington. The Administration would prefer business as usual. In fact, those who wanted to recognize Communist Vietnam diplomatically used an old gambit, asserting that this move would somehow get back at China.