Laogai literally means, re-education through labor.

Han left China and his post because he was constantly forced to supervise activities which he simply saw as wrong: The incarceration, persecution, torture and killing of innocent people. While some in the Chinese government see him as a traitor, he touched us with his love for China, which he spoke of in a July statement:

"Many people asked me whether I chose exile because of economic problems. I want to tell everyone that I left because of my conscience. I do not want to sacrifice my life for the CCP any longer; I do not want to betray my conscience any longer. This is the most fundamental reason. I gave up my comfortable living conditions inside Mainland China to come here. To make a living, I do manual labor, drive taxies and manage small businesses. I live simply, but the money I make is clean.

Responding to all kinds of reactions from overseas Chinese, especially various guesses and comments from people who came from mainland China, I want to tell you: Although with different reasons we all chose not to live under the CCP’s control, I love my homeland and the people there just the same as you. The CCP is not China and it does not represent the Chinese people. I speak out publicly so that more people will have the opportunity to break away from the CCP and to gain light and freedom."

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been excellent in covering the stories of the many Chinese defectors that came out over the last few months. It is the the ABC's late-night show Dateline, an Aussie equivalent of 60 Minutes in popularity and stature, that arranged for such a historic meeting.

The following is the introduction to Inside the Lao Gai, taken directly from its transcript:

"When someone gets around to writing the black chapters in the history of the 20th century, you can be pretty sure that Hitler's concentration camps and Stalin's Siberian gulags will get dishonourable mention. But what about their Chinese equivalents - the lao gai, or labour camps, still a brutal, hidden scar on the Chinese landscape?

In June this year - on the heels of Chen Yong Lin here in Australia - another defector surfaced in Canada with insider knowledge of the system. Han Guansheng ran four labour camps and two prisons in China, making him one of the highest-ranking defectors to have emerged. In his first in-depth television interview, Han confirms what other dissidents have been saying for years that the laogai are hell on earth."

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