China Digital Times

China news tagged with: hukou (26)

• Carl Minzner: The System that Divides China

  

  In the Los Angeles Times, associate professor of law at Washington University’s school of law in St. Louis, writes an op-ed outlining the changes that are necessary for true reform of the hukou system:

  Recent electoral reforms sidestepped crucial questions of whether to allow migrants to vote and stand for election in the cities where they work. Tough economic conditions for obtaining urban residency under many local reforms (such as actually purchasing a house) exclude low-income rural migrants living in rental apartments. In the northern city of Shijiazhuang, such reforms generated a mere 11,000 applicants for urban registration, out of a total population of about 300,000 migrant workers.

  In addition, many national and local reforms have ground to a halt over thorny funding issues. Local governments resist shouldering the burden for extending education and health benefits to migrants. Many urban residents oppose cuts to their privileged levels of access to public services.

  Chinese officials also have not responded positively to efforts by activists and journalists to foster public discussion of these issues. Last week, foreign news outlets reported that Zhang Hong, one of the key editors responsible for the March 1 joint editorial, was forced to resign. And authorities have deleted the editorial itself from websites throughout China.

  Effectively addressing the plight of Chinese migrants requires much deeper reforms to the hukou system. It requires breaking the hereditary nature of the residency system. It requires shifting funds to better provide for migrant needs. It requires eliminating the 1950s-era regulations that underlie the hukou system and eroding the iron linkage between residency status and public services. And it requires a frank and open discussion of these issues in the Chinese media.

  Read more about the hukou system and migrant workers via CDT.

  » Read more
  • March 16, 2010 9:52 AM

• Millions of Chinese Rural Migrants Denied Education for Their Children

  

  In the Guardian, Tania Branigan reports on the plight of the children of migrant workers, who are not entitled to an education:

  The contradictions of the hukou system, designed for a 1950s planned economy, become more painful with every year of China’s development. About 140 million rural migrants are now working in the cities, where average incomes are more than three times than those of the countryside. Migrants have fuelled the country’s spectacular growth but not reaped the benefits. And once they become parents, they face an unpalatable choice.

  Fifty-eight million children are left behind in the countryside by parents who hope that relatives will raise them lovingly. Another 19 million remain in the cities – where they are, in effect, second-class citizens. Both groups have poorer academic performance and more behavioural problems than their peers.

  At present, Hu’s eight-year-old twins, Xiaonan and Xiaobei, are studying in the family’s cramped one-room apartment, under the guidance of their mother, who left school at 16.

  “You need connections to get your kids in [to state school] if you are from other places, and making those connections costs too much money,” says Hu. “We can’t afford it.”

  Watch the video report here.

  » Read more
  • March 14, 2010 7:17 PM

• Mismanaging China’s Rural Exodus

  

  A column in the Financial Times looks at the future of China’s internal migration and household registration reform, quoting a rural expert who predicts that China’s urban population will grow from 45% of the total to 70%:

  The startling numbers conjure up images of mass migrations and the trebling or quadrupling in size of big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In practice, it is unlikely to be quite like that. China, after all, is a planned economy. Even so, McKinsey Global Institute, which has researched China’s urbanisation trends, paints one scenario under which, by 2025, the country will have 15 super-cities with an average population of 25m people each. Meanwhile, many cities will “move” to the countryside as the state frantically constructs new urban centres in the interior and as changing land use blurs the distinction between village and town.

  This is not futurism. By some counts, China already has some 170 cities with a population above 1m. That compares with nine in the US and two in the UK. In population terms, Tianjin is China’s New York and Qingdao its Los Angeles.

  The emergence of second and third-tier Chinese cities with big populations has businesses salivating at the prospects of a consumer bonanza. A steady stream of urbanites could indeed become tomorrow’s purchasers of kitchen appliances, insurance and cars. City authorities will need mass-transit systems, power grids and telecoms equipment. Chinese urbanisation could, as McKinsey says, be the biggest business opportunity of the next several decades.

  There is a hitch. Not only will planners need to build the physical infrastructure to accommodate this urban groundswell. Harder still, China will have to erect a legal framework. As things stand, of the estimated 200m migrants who have already swapped their hoe for factory aprons or a hard hat, the bulk have no right to permanent residence in the cities. The so-called hukou registration system, instituted by Mao Zedong in the 1950s as a way of limiting internal migration, divides China’s urban population into two castes – privileged official residents and marginalised migrants.

  » Read more
  • March 10, 2010 3:26 PM

• Zhang Hong: I Am a Moderate Adviser

  

  Zhang Hong, one of the drafters of the unprecedented joint newspaper editorial calling for an abolition of the household registration system, was dismissed from his position as deputy editor at the Economic Observer Online. He writes the back story of how the editorial came to be, which the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog translates:

  The original plan for the joint editorial was hatched last year when the Economic Observer joined the Guardian newspaper in a joint editorial on climate change that was published by 56 media outlets. At the time I was responsible for communicating with the Guardian, discussing and translating the joint editorial, and developed a fairly deep understanding of the entire process. Afterward the idea sprung up of whether we could publish a similar type of editorial domestically.

  The suggestion to use the household registration issue as a focal point came from another colleague. In choosing this as the topic, it’s important to understand that hukou reform has already seen breakthroughs on many fronts, many cities are speeding it up, and Premier Wen Jiabao and high level central government officials have stated their position on this item of reform on many public occasions. We believed that publishing an editorial on this topic would be in line with the direction of Chinese government reforms and with the broad public interest, and that the risks were not too great. Some foreign news agencies have said that the order for this may have come down from high levels of government, but in fact it was not at all like that. This was the product of a few editors working behind closed doors, but the stir it created went beyond our initial expectations.

  Moreover, we decided to use the two meetings [of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference currently taking place in Beijing] as the timeframe for publication in order to express the media’s wish to participate in China’s overall reform. To put it bluntly, I’ve lived for 36 years, but never known which representatives were chosen by me, who are able to seek justice on my behalf. I think many people might also have similar views. As part of the media, we hope that the voices of the masses can make themselves heard among the representatives who “represent public opinion.” This is a moderate stance, but it is the type of thing that before was rarely expressed directly in the media.

  Read about Zhang’s dismissal from the New York Times.

  » Read more
  • March 9, 2010 3:45 AM

• Chinese Newspapers in Joint Call to End Curb on Migrant Workers

  

  The Guardian reports on a rare joint appeal by 13 Chinese newspapers for the end of the hukou household registration system:

  “China has suffered from the hukou [household registration] system for so long,” the appeal said. “We believe people are born free and should have the right to migrate freely, but citizens are still troubled by bad policies born in the era of the planned economy and [now] unsuitable.”

  The appeal appeared to have been removed from at least one website this evening within hours, but was still available on other newspapers’ sites.

  …Newspapers including the Metropolis Times of Kunming, the Southern Metropolis Daily, Chongqing Times and the Economic Observer ran the appeal in a rare co-ordinated action.

  They timed their call to coincide with the annual meetings of China’s largely rubber-stamp legislature and advisory body, which begin this week, where the hukou is likely to be high on the agenda.

  Officials have already pledged changes and China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, promised to push ahead with them in an internet chat yesterday. But the joint editorial urged delegates to the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to hasten reforms with a view to ending the system.

  See also a China Daily article.

  » Read more
  • March 1, 2010 10:40 PM

• China Promises Better Benefits for Rural Migrants

  

  The government plans to provide better social service benefits and housing assistance for young migrant workers. From the Washington Post:

  For decades, China has restrained migration by linking access to low-cost public services like health care and education to a person’s registered place of residence. The system means rural migrants in Shanghai, Beijing and other big cities are deprived many essential benefits and services.

  Han Jun, a senior research fellow at the Development Research Center, a think tank that advises China’s Cabinet, said a policy paper released last month made it clear that the government is “striving for substantial reform of the household registration system” to allow migrants, especially younger ones, to register in cities.

  However, the reform plan aims to get migrants registered in cities and townships close to their home villages – not expensive places like Beijing or Shanghai where migrants flock for construction and service sector jobs.

  » Read more
  • February 23, 2010 2:00 PM

• Hu Xingdou: China’s Poor: Always with Us?

  

  On Open Democracy, Hu Xingdou, professor of economics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, writes about the reasons why it is difficult to break out of the cycle of poverty in China:

  In China, the cycle of poverty is due to the failings and irrationalities of a number of systems – of household registration, education, state-owned monopolies, taxation, distribution of resources, welfare, the press, public representation and government bureaucracy.

  [...] China’s welfare system works on three levels, or classes. Cadres and civil servants enjoy the best treatment. Next are urban residents and company employees, many of whom face issues with unemployment or healthcare provision. The third class is rural residents, with medical care and pension provision only just getting started and currently at a very low level. Generational poverty will, I fear, just carry on.

  But these are just the secondary causes of second-generation poverty. The most fundamental cause is that vulnerable groups lack the right to speak, to organize and to exercise oversight of government. We lack private publications – local officials control radio, TV and the new media to protect and add to their own interests. The voices of the poor, petitioners, the workers and the rural are not heard. Workers and rural residents lack a truly representative organization. They are therefore unable to negotiate on a level playing field with capital, and so wages and benefits stay low. There are severe restrictions on what farmers can do to market their products, so rural incomes remain low and quality and safety remain in question. Meanwhile, people’s representatives and officials who have not been appointed through genuine elections will not of their own accord represent the people’s interests. And so poverty will be passed on again and again through a vast and vulnerable population.

  » Read more
  • October 21, 2009 8:13 PM

• New Details for Earning Shanghai Residence Permits

  

  From Shanghai Daily:

  The Shanghai government released details of its three-year trial plan to make it easier for people from outside the city to become permanent residents, it said at a news briefing yesterday.

  The first batch of applicants who meet the requirements only amount to about 3,000 as they must have held a Shanghai Residence Card for at least seven years, said Ye Minzhong, deputy director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission. The Shanghai Residence Card is a temporary permit that was launched in 2002.

  [...]With a population of nearly 19 million people, Shanghai became the country’s first large city to ease its previously rigid hukou system in a bid to attract skilled professionals. Shanghai had about 7.2 million migrant people by the end of last year, according to the city’s population and family planning commission.

  The Shanghaiist has criticisms from the web of the new hukou regulations from both migrant workers and Shanghai residents.

  » Read more
  • June 18, 2009 1:44 PM

• Survey: 47 Million Rural Women Sexually Deprived

  

  The follow excerpt is from a news article in Beijing News (via netease.com) on December 2, translated by CDT’s Lucy Lin:

  At the moment, there are 87 million “remain villagers” (Liushou Renkou: meaning those villagers stayed in the rural areas while their family members went to work in the cities.) nationwide. A study conducted by the China Agriculture University on the population that stays behind in villages showed that among the 87 million “remaining villagers”, 20 million are children, 47 million are women, and approximately 20 million are seniors.

  At yesterday’s news conference regarding this issue, the vice president of the College of Human and Social Development at the China Agriculture University Ye Jingzhong said that through its survey, the research team discovered that the women who stay behind in rural villages have secretly voiced the problem of sex repression: “For long periods of time, they are sexually repressed, bringing a chain of negative sentiments.” The investigation showed that 69.8% of these women frequently felt restless, 50.6% of them frequently felt anxious, and 39.0% of them frequently felt repressed.

  Blogger Hong Qiaojun (洪巧俊 ) commented on this news on his blog on ifeng.com: “Who have the 47 million ‘institutional widows’ embarrassed?” (excerpt translated by Lucy Lin)

  I call these 47 million women who stay behind in rural villages “widows” because their sex life is the same as that of a widow’s. However, I’ve put quotations around the term because they’re not really widows, and they all actually have husbands. Not long ago, there was a report that said 90% of the wives of corrupt officials were living a widowed life and called these women “rich widows.” Of course, the “widows” from the rural villages and the “widows” from families of corrupt officials are different in nature. The “widows” of the rural villages are constrained by the pressures of home life as their husbands labor outside the village for long periods of time while they have to stay at home to look after the children as well as cultivating the fields; the “widows” from families of corrupt officials are “widows” because the corrupt officials are always out engaging in debauchery and not coming home all night. One is well-fed and clothed but wants lust, and one is poor but wants to be well-fed and clothed. These are two completely different living circumstances.

  Who let these 47 million women become “widows” not just in name, but in reality, too? Without a doubt, it is the legal, institutional divide between residents in the city and the countryside, and so calling them “institutionalized widows” is more appropriate.

  » Read more
  • December 6, 2008 10:55 PM

• The List: The 10 Worst Chinese Laws

  

  The Foreign Policy blog has compiled what they judge to be the 10 worst laws in China, including
  Article 105 of the Criminal Law:

  What it says: Criminalizes “organizing, scheming or acting to subvert the political power of the state and overthrow the socialist system” and “incitement to subvert the political power of the state and overthrow the socialist system by spreading rumors, slander or other means.”

  What it does: Although China’s constitution ostensibly guarantees the right to free speech and expression, statutes such as this one allow the state to suppress all criticism. Subversion charges are a common fate for China’s activist bloggers and journalists.

  » Read more
  • August 18, 2008 9:26 PM

• Is Yunnan “Eliminating” the Hukou System? – Carl Minzner

  

  On his Chinese Law and Politics blog, Carl Minzner asks if recent reports that Yunnan will eliminate the hukou system are accurate:

  Short answer – no. At least one website has reported that recent reforms undertaken by the provincial government of Yunnan will “eliminate” the household registration (hukou) system. This isn’t the case.

  The announced Yunnan reforms will eliminate the distinction between “agricultural” and “non-agricultural” hukou status, according to an October 25 Xinhua article. Similar reforms have been announced by a number of other provinces and municipalities. But they do not affect the requirement that migrants obtain local hukou in urban areas to receive public services and benefits on an equal basis with other urban residents. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • November 3, 2007 3:24 PM

• Yunnan to Eliminate Hukou Restrictions – GoKunming

  

  From GoKunming:

  The Yunnan government has announced that beginning on January 1 of next year, Yunnan province will eliminate the current hukou registration system that essentially binds rural Yunnanese to their officially registered place of residence – often their place of birth or where their parents are registered. This reform of the system currently in use will enable millions to legally move and integrate into cities for the first time.

  Currently, Kunming and other cities including Yuxi, Qujing and Dali have a substantial and uncounted population of technically illegal residents with rural hukou (户口), or residential registration, that have relocated to the cities from the Yunnan countryside. Most members of this demographic typically move to these cities to work or search for a job and are ineligible for social benefits provided by the cities where they live to registered residents. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • November 2, 2007 5:32 AM

• Hukou Reforms Under Consideration – Carl Minzner

  

  On his Chinese Law and Politics blog, Carl Minzner writes about proposed reforms to the hukou system in China:

  Chinese authorities are considering reforms to the Chinese hukou (household registration) system. Proposed reforms would strengthen the system of temporary residence permits, expand the ability of the spouses and elderly parents of urban residents to relocate to China’s cities, and use the criteria of a “fixed, legal place of residence” as the touchstone for determining whether rural migrants can shift their hukou to urban areas.

  Chinese scholars and officials note that the above reforms are merely under consideration. They also note that these reforms would not themselves address the pervasive linkage of hukou registration to a wide range of social and economic benefits, nor the resulting systematic discrimination against rural residents and migrants. But the proposed criteria for migrants to obtain hukou in urban areas do appear to be a mild liberalization over prior formulations used by Chinese authorities in the past. [Full text]

  - See also a China Daily article about the proposed reforms.

  » Read more
  • June 5, 2007 3:45 PM

• Hukou ‘An Obstacle to Market Economy’ – Rong Jiaojiao

  

  From China Daily:

  When Du Yumeng was born in December 2005, she was probably not aware that she had been classified into a different category from other babies – a category which includes people toting wheelbarrows of fresh fruit, selling steamed buns from a corner booth or peddling phone cards. They all share one thing in common – a rural ‘hukou‘, or household registration.

  Set up in 1958 in order to control mass urbanization, China’s hukou system effectively divides the population in two – ‘the haves’ (urban households) and ‘the have not’s’ (rural households).

  Under the system, rural citizens have little access to social welfare in cities and are restricted from receiving public services such as education, medical care, housing and employment, regardless of how long they may have lived or worked in the city. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • May 21, 2007 8:49 AM

• How the Hukou System Distorts Reality – Wu Zhong

  

  From Asia Times:

  The outdated hukou system has increasingly become one of the major obstacles to attaining social harmony in today’s China.

  China began to enforce the hukou system in 1953, shortly after the Communist Party came to power upon winning a civil war against the Kuomintang. A major purpose was to facilitate the implementation of a Stalinist-style socialist command economy. The rationale was that production was to meet the needs of the people rather than to seek profits. Overproduction was evil…

  It is ridiculous that such a system should remain largely intact despite the fundamental changes to both the economy and society that have been brought by economic reform and opening up over the past nearly three decades. Today, Chinese citizens, including rural residents, are free both to travel and to migrate across the country – but they are still not allowed to change their registration easily. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • April 11, 2007 9:44 AM

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