Posted on 7-11-2002
Chinese
Wall
Full article at oneworld.net
The massive rural-to-urban migrations that have occurred in
China during
the reform era have led some commentators to claim that the
residence
registration (hukou) system is no longer operational. The corollary
of this
is the idea that migrants who settle in China's cities will
be eligible for
the same benefits and entitlements as urban residents.
In fact, the hukou system, under which individuals and families
are tied to
a particular place and divided into urban or rural categories,
remains the
key to understanding the institutionalized exclusion that keeps
the rural
poor out of China's cities. Although the Chinese government
began to
announce "reforms" of the hukou system in the mid-1990s, these
were not
aimed at ending the controls on migration instituted in the
first years of
the PRC or at the eventual elimination of the hukou system.
Instead, they
have constructed complex new barriers to migrants' entry into
the cities
and a web of discriminatory rules that effectively put them
in a similar
situation to "guest workers" or illegal immigrants in rich countries.
The authorities have never ceased their efforts to control migration.
The
clearest evidence of the authorities' insistence on shutting
the poorest
out of China's major cities is the rapid growth of detention
under Custody
and Repatriation, which has more than tripled over the space
of a decade,
reaching over 3.2 million instances of detention in the year
2000. Official
sources indicate that the "vast majority" of detainees are internal
migrants, particularly those from rural areas.
However, the hukou system is merely the means to enforcing divisions
created by inequitable and discriminatory investment and development
policies. The continuing control of migration reflects the enormous
gulf
between countryside and city, a major factor in China achieving
the dubious
distinction of now being among the most unequal societies in
the world. By
shutting the poorest out of the centers of power, it allows
the authorities
to continue to ignore their plight with relative impunity.
The focus of this report is the legal status of internal migrants
in four
of China's major cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
It
describes the discriminatory laws and policies that make internal
migrants
into second class citizens, essentially leaving 10 to 20 percent
of the
poorest residents of these cities virtually without rights.
Since the
poorest and most vulnerable among the rural-to-urban migrants
are least
able to circumvent the mechanisms of control, due to their lack
of money
and influence, and are most likely to be subject to official
and popular
discrimination, their experience is the report's principal subject
matter.
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