Policy adjustments are not always easy
Historical, political, and economic forces are elements in promoting and discouraging policy changes.In Asia Times Online, China editor Wu Zhong discusses the factors that created and maintain the hukou (residency registration) system in China. From the title, you can also guess that Wu argues that the hukou system is getting in the way of President Hu's "harmonious society."
I'd like my students to read this article and identify the forces for and against changing the hukou system, identify the Party leadership (Politburo) and where they come from or what ideas they promote, and then assess the possibility of real change being promoted at next fall's Party Congress.
How the hukou system distorts reality
"The Chinese Communist Party's 17th National Congress in the autumn is expected formally to endorse President Hu Jintao's idea of building a 'harmonious society' as the party line.
"This has boosted the hope that reforming the five-decade-old, rigid hukou (household or residency registration) system will be speeded up after the all-important party meeting. The outdated hukou system has increasingly become one of the major obstacles to attaining social harmony in today's China.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...
"It was thus ironic that while socialism was to eliminate social classes, the hukou system virtually fixed Chinese people into two big classes: urban citizens and rural residents or farmers...
"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...
"Since the early 1980s, vast numbers of farmers have left their land to work and live in cities...
"But in reality, the obsolete system means that rural migrant workers, no matter how long they have lived in cities, or if their children have been born and raised in the cities, are not regarded as urban citizens...
"However, it is in the city governments where the resistance is strongest. It means the municipal government would have to spend extra funds to expand facilities and public services to accommodate growth...
"Hence for a city government the hukou system remains a strong defense line for its prosperity..."
- Reforms make life and travel much easier, a 2003 article from The Peoples Daily
- China rethinks peasant 'apartheid', a 2005 BBC report on hukou
- Who pays for expensive Beijing hukou?, a 2005 article from Danwei on Beijing's hukou system
- Hukou System in China, a 2005 blogger's explanation of hukou
- Hukou Reform Targets Urban-Rural Divide, an undated article on hukou reform from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing
Labels: China, economics, policy, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:33 AM
1 Comments:
23 May 2007
Now, Xinhua reports on proposed changes to the residency system.
China mulls reform of household registration system
"China's decades-long household registration system, which divides the population into urban and rural residents, may be reformed.
"The central government is considering a proposal from the Ministry of Public Security to scrap the two-tiered "hukou" registration system and allow freer migration between cities and the countryside...
"Under the current system set up in 1958 to control citizens' movements, rural dwellers have little chance to change their registered residence regardless of how long they may have lived or worked in the city.
"Because China's social welfare and health care systems are based on the household registration system, rural residents working in the city have little access to social welfare and suffer restrictions on access to public services such as education, medical care, housing and employment...
"Government estimates suggest that around 120 million migrant workers have moved to cities in search of work, but the real figure could be much higher..."
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