Jean Pasqualini (; 1926 – 9 October 1997) was a French and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

journalist who wrote a memoir of his experiences as a political prisoner in the

Laogai ''Laogai'' (), short for ''laodong gaizao'' (), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea (DPRK). ''Láogǎi'' i ...

labor camp system. Born in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, Jean Pasqualini was the son of a

mother and a Corsican French father.New York Times
'Obituary : Jean Pasqualini, Who Wrote Account of China's Gulag, Dies'
7 October 1997. His Chinese name is rendered as Bao Ruowang,Chicago Tribune
'Jean Pasqualini: Wrote About China Labor Camps'
13 October 1997 with "Bao" representing the first syllable in Pasqualini and "Ruowang" being a phonetic rendering of Jean.

Biography

As a child, Jean Pasqualini attended school in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

. During the Second World War and after, he worked as a translator for the U.S. military and the British Embassy in Beijing prior to the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

takeover in 1949. During the

political campaigns A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...

of 1957, Pasqualini was sentenced to 12 years in detention and was accused of "counter-revolutionary activity" on the basis of his work with foreigners. He was released in 1964 after France established diplomatic relations with the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Following his release, he was expelled and moved to Paris. In 1973, along with co-author Rudolph Chelminski, Pasqualini published his autobiography ''Prisoner of Mao''. The book recounted his experiences as a prisoner from 1957–1964, including 15 months of interrogation that led to a 700-page confession. Pasqualini recalled the experience of the Great Chinese Famine and of being privately warned by a labor camp doctor not to eat the adulterated food that had been mixed with sawdust. He also detailed at length the daily criticism and

self-criticism Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...

sessions. Over the course of his imprisonment, Jean Pasqualini wrote that he lost the capacity for independent thought, his defiance and skepticism gradually giving way to acceptance of his own guilt. Pasqualini spent his later years in France working as a translator and researcher for

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

and Life magazine. In 1992, he co-founded the

Laogai Research Foundation The Laogai Research Foundation is a human rights NGO located in Washington, D.C, United States. The foundation's mission is to "gather information on and raise public awareness of the Laogai—China's extensive system of forced-labor prison camp ...

with

Harry Wu Harry Wu (; February 8, 1937 – April 26, 2016) was a Chinese-American human rights activist. Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, and he became a resident and citizen of the United States. In 1992, he founded the Laogai Research Fou ...

.Benjamin Ivry
'Pasqualini, Out of Print'
Commentary Magazine, 29 August 2007. He died in a Paris hospital in 1997.

Influence

Jean Pasqualini's account of life in the labor camp system was a major source for

The Black Book of Communism ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by co ...

.Coutois, Stephane, S.C. (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes Terror Repression. Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows of Harvard College. His book has been translated into several languages, and was made into a French-language movie in 1977. It has been described as the first autobiographical account of life in China's labor camp system. When Pasqualini's book was initially published, he was criticized and denounced by French supporters of the Communist Revolution who, according to Seth Faison, "refused to believe that the seemingly utopian nation of happy peasants and workers ... could have such a dark side." In 1978, Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans described ''Prisoner of Mao'' as the "most fundamental document on the Maoist ‘Gulag’ and, as such, the most studiously ignored by the lobby that maintains that there is no human-rights problem in the People’s Republic." Criticism subsided years later as more information emerged to corroborate Pasqualini's account, and Chinese authorities admitted to the excesses of the period.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pasqualini, Jean 1926 births 1997 deaths Writers from Beijing Chinese autobiographers French memoirists Memoirs of imprisonment Penal labor in China Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China Chinese prisoners and detainees French people imprisoned abroad Chinese journalists 20th-century French journalists Chinese sinologists French sinologists Chinese anti-communists French anti-communists French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French male writers 20th-century Chinese male writers Chinese emigrants to France Chinese people of French descent

Biography

Influence

See also

Sources