regulatingrural-urbanmigrantsinbeijinginstitutional.docVIP

Regulating Rural-Urban Migrants in Beijing: Institutional Conflict and Ineffective Campaigns Xin Frank He* Introduction The movement of China’s rural residents to its urban areas in the past two decades has shaped the nation’s economic and political landscape. This internal migration has been massive in scope: There were approximately 120 million internal migrants in 2002, a number exceeding the total population of most countries. This movement was facilitated by Chinese economic reforms, launched in the late 1970s, that were intended to stimulate the market economy and give people more opportunities for economic development. Prior to that time, China enforced the hukou system, a strict household registration system that restrained the movement of people. To migrate under the original hukou system, an individual could not simply change his place of residence to a different jurisdiction and remain there over a given period; instead, he would need an official change of permanent residence, which was hard to obtain. But with the advent of economic reform, many of the hukou shackles on movement inside the country were loosened, and many rural workers moved to the cities in search of better job opportunities and living conditions. The resulting migration wave has alarmed both urban governments and the central government of China. Local host governments have become negative or even hostile toward migrants, who poured into the cities. Urban leaders have questioned how the migrants could be accommodated by infrastructure facilities already under extreme pressure. Concerns about the high urban crime and fertility rates in the cities have been exacerbated, as migrants are thought to disproportionately contribute to both. Government leaders also have worried about how to pacify potential resentment between migrants and urbanites, who view migrants as competitors in the job market. Government officials have responded to the influx of migrants with a proliferation of