What percent of China's economy benefits from prison labor?

Factual Questions
1

I’m wondering how much they are using and how much they’re profiting from it.

2

Hard to say. The US’s hands aren’t clean on this count either, though. Lots of telemarketers and newspaper inserters are inmates.

3

Well China haa not only a lower incarceraionrate than the US, they also have less prisoners:

4

It is difficult to say anything about the Chinese prison system with total certainty, but probably not much.

First, because not all Chinese prisons are laogai, with a forced labor system. Second, because the manufacturing capacity of China is so enormous, in terms of labor inputs, that the prisoners are but a very small part of it. And third because no matter how forced the labor might be, I would be willing to bet the low productivity makes up for any labor cost savings.

5

I dunno, but around here I can get a beach mat for under $1.

6

Are those US inmates forced to participate, or do they opt into those jobs?

7

I’m sure they opt into them. Still, they enable the “employers” to compete in the marketplace with negligible labor costs, which was kinda the point of the OP. Employers who pay a living wage hurt when going head to head with employers who don’t.