CHINA: China concedes that prison-made goods may...

CHINA: China concedes that prison-made goods may have been exported to the United States but insisted that it was not official policy and that the American side should shoulder some responsibility. Allegations that China is using prison labor to swell its already huge trade surplus with the United States has inflamed debate in Washington over whether to renew for another year China’s most-favored-nation trade status. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a news briefing that if goods made in Chinese labor camps had entered U.S. markets, it was because of a management problem. “If it is true that some of the goods produced by ‘reform through labor’ prisons have indeed entered the U.S. market, that is the result of some oversight in the process of management and on that count the U.S. side should also have some responsibility,” Wu Jianmin said.