Pieke, F.N.

Leiden University Scholary Publications

Issue 50  Summer 2010 CHINA REVIEW © Great Britain-China Centre, 2010. All rights reserved ISSN: 1359-5091 50th and final issue of the China Review!  After 10 years of regular appearances the China Review is taking its last and final stand.  We have an impressive line-up of writers, many of whom have been regular contributors. We take this opportunity to thank them and many others for their support over the last ten years of publication.     China Review is published by the Great Britain – China Centre, a publicly-funded organisation, and the time has come, sadly, when we can no longer justify the time and expense of producing a quarterly magazine.  We hope you have enjoyed receiving the China Review and trust you will continue to take an interest in both the GBCC and the All Party Parliamentary China Group by visiting our websites www.gbcc.org.uk and www.appcg.org.uk.   The China Review Editorial Team Contributors David Shambaugh is Professor of Political Science & International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University Michael Yahuda is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the London School of Economics  Peter Nolan is Director of the Chinese Big Business Programme at Cambridge Judge Business School Calum MacLeod is Asia correspondent for USA Today  Rana Mitter is Professor of History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford Frank N. Pieke is University Lecturer of Modern Politics and Society of China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford Dr. Linda Yueh is Director, China Growth Centre and Fellow in Economics, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford  Carl Minzner is an Associate Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law  Duncan Hewitt is a correspondent for Newsweek in Shanghai Peter Hessler is the author of Rivertown, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving Laura Rivkin is Information and Office Manager at GBCC Page 20  THE WORLD’S EMERGING SUPERPOWERS  – China, India, Brazil, Russia – demand an increasingly prominent role in the global migration order, not only as countries of origin but also, and increasingly, as countries of  destination  for  international  migrants.  The  People’s Republic  of  China  is  the  largest  and  arguably  most important of the twenty-first century’s new superpowers. It is well-documented that China’s economic development has given rise to massive flows of domestic migration and international  out-migration.  However,  as  international migration is now beginning to fill specific gaps in the labour market and foreigners are attracted by the promise of a better life, China is also rapidly becoming an important destination of immigrants.  For  decades  already,  China  has  had  sizeable foreign student and expatriate communities, mainly from the West, East, and Southeast Asia. However, in the past few years immigration to China has become much more diverse. Many of these new immigrants are not simply expatriates or short-term visitors, but bring or start families and expect to stay. In addition, an increasing number of Chinese return to China after study or work abroad. All are attracted by the business climate, jobs and life style that China now offers.  Not only have major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou become as cosmopolitan and culturally diverse as other major metropolitan centres around the world, but smaller, rapidly growing cities and towns like Shenzhen, Xiamen, Wenzhou, Yiwu, Shaoxing, Weihai,  Nanjing  and  Kunming  are  following  suit. According  to  United  Nations  data,  China’s  stock  of immigrants was projected to reach 685,800 in 2010. This is certainly a severe undercount, and a more realistic number may  be  around  the  two  million  mark.  Despite  this seemingly large number,  we should  bear  in  mind that international migrants still are only a minute fraction of China’s  huge population.  Yet  the  scale  and variety of immigration  in  China  already  clearly  defies  easy  and unambiguous  characterizations.  Three  broad  and overlapping categories of immigrants can be distinguished: (1) students; (2) middle class professionals, businesspeople and traders; and (3) cross-border migrants.   Students  In addition to large numbers of short-term students of Chinese language and culture, China has also become a magnet for foreign degree students. Some of this is part of the government’s “soft power” strategy, but many students from Vietnam, Cambodia,  Laos,  India,  Bangladesh and Pakistan apply to Chinese universities also because of the combination of good-quality education, reasonable fees and  CHINA’S IMMIGRANT POPULATION  BY  FRANK N. PIEKE China Review Summer 2010  chinafotopress China’s Immigrant Population Page 21  geographic proximity. The rise in foreign student numbers is by no means limited to the metropolitan areas of the coastal  region.  In  Yunnan,  the  number  of  Vietnamese students rose from 89 in 2002 to 515 in 2006. Other sharp risers in the province included South Korea, Thailand, Laos and  Burma,  with  a  more  moderate  rise  recorded  for Americans and Japanese. Among these foreign students, the number of non-Chinese language students rose sharpest, for instance in medicine, art and business. Private universities saw an especially rapid rise in foreign student numbers.  Professionals, businesspeople and traders  The communities of middle class and elite resident foreigners in China’s cities are no longer dominated by expatriate  employees  of  foreign  multinationals, international  organizations,  diplomatic  missions  and “foreign  experts”  hired  by  Chinese  state  enterprise organizations.  Large  numbers  of  foreigners  have independently taken up long-term residence in search of local employment, cheaper living costs, or to set up their own company. In addition, we should also include in this category the very diverse group of traders from Russia, Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. To all of these foreigners, China is the land of opportunity, not just a stopover on an international career. In the eyes of many Chinese, (white) westerners are the paradigm of what are known as yang dagong  (foreign workers). However, numerically this category of foreign residents is dominated by hundreds of thousands of middle class  Taiwanese,  Hong  Kong  Chinese,  South  Koreans, Japanese  and Southeast  Asians  and  of  course  returned Chinese students and professionals. Very prominent are also the  much smaller  communities  of  traders  from Africa, South, Central and Southeast Asia, Russia and the Middle East.   Many groups of immigrants who share a common background tend to concentrate in one particular city or neighbourhood  and  specialize  in  a  particular  type  of employment or business. The group of foreign traders that are  by  far  the  best  researched  are  the  Africans  in Guangzhou, partially because of the visibility of what is locally known as “Chocolate City” and partially also as a corollary of the recent interest in the connections  between  China  and Africa, including Chinese migration to the continent. Starting with a few enterprising  students  some  fifteen years  ago,  currently  about  30,000 Africans  operate  in  Guangzhou purchasing manufactured goods for export. Many of these traders have become long-term residents of China, often with families; quite a few of them  have  become  very  wealthy. Others operate more in the margin, searching for the deal that will make them rich too, often residing in China illegally or shuttling back and forth between China and Africa on tourist visas.  Cross-border migrants China’s  international  borders  no longer divide and separate. They are becoming part of larger  cross-border  regions  defined  by  complex relationships of co-ethnicity, religion, legal trade and illegal smuggling, marriage, employment, study, immigration and emigration, crime and (particularly in the case of Xinjiang) terrorism.  North  Korea  provides  perhaps  the  clearest example. The famine in the late 1990s led to a flood of immigrants  from  North  Korea  into  China.  The  PRC government has treated illegal Koreans with little sympathy. In 2002, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported massive roundups, detentions and repatriations of North Koreans, and a crackdown on religious and human rights groups that assisted them. The issue is made more complex because of the large ethnically Korean population that lives in China just across the border from North Korea. Many  North  Koreans  were  taken  into  rural  Korean households and even irregularly registered as members of these households by the local authorities.   “Fortune seekers” and problems of immigration  Neatly  dividing  foreign  immigrants  into  the categories such as “students”, “traders”, “businesspeople”, “professionals” and “cross-border migrants” hardly covers the reality on the ground in China. Migrants are highly enterprising and proactive in exploring the opportunities that China has to offer, and there is very considerable overlap and spillover between all of these categories as a result. From the perspective of the Chinese authorities, the dynamic nature of migration has created a further category of immigrant that does not come to China for bona fide business, study, or employment, but opportunistically in search  of  wealth  or  survival.  Such  “fortune seekers” (taojinzhe, literally “gold panners”), do not bring any skills or capital to China. They come to China not to contribute  to  its  modernization,  but  merely  to  take advantage of its new prosperity.   In  fact,  of  course,  almost  every  group  of immigrants in China is internally stratified, having both highly  successful  professionals  and  businesspeople  and more  marginal  groups  without  formal  jobs  or  fully registered businesses. New immigrants rely on their own resources and personal contacts,  causing the growth of Banging the drum for Chinese education: numbers of South Korean students in China  have risen sharply.   chinafotopress Page 22  residentially  concentrated  urban  “villages”  (cun)  or “towns” (cheng) of foreigners, such as the Burmese and Vietnamese in Guangxi and the South Koreans in Beijing. Here we see the beginnings of the “ethnic enclave” pattern of  immigrant  settlement  found among many immigrant groups the world over, where the institutional infrastructure and  employment  offered  by  a  co-ethnic  community provides new arrivals with the chance to get established and ultimately become successful too.  Chinese studies often conclude that fortune seekers do not deserve the courtesies extended to foreigners, but should rather be considered part of the “floating population” of rural-urban migrants. Increasingly, the problem of the “foreign blind flow” (waiguo mangliu) is directly connected with that of the “three illegalities” (san fei) of illegal entry, illegal  residence and illegal  work.  Moreover,  the  three illegalities and the foreign floating population are often discussed together with many other much more serious problems, including terrorism, organized and petty crime, drinking,  drugs  and  violence,  prostitution  and unemployment,  a  list  that  is  depressingly  similar  to observations on immigration in western countries.   Yet  most  authors  also  agree  that  the  lack  of compliance  with  China’s  regulations  regarding  foreign entry, employment and residence should be separated from more serious law enforcement issues. The illegality of many foreigners in China often has to do more with the lack of appropriate regulation, the continued restrictions on travel and other activities by foreigners, and a general lack of expertise and coordination within those branches of the administration that  are  responsible for  foreigners.  Even many  professional  and  business  migrants,  the  kind  of people China says it wants, either often have no choice but to bend the rules in order to live and work in China, or else Frank N. Pieke is University Lecturer of Modern Politics and Society of China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford have little incentive to comply with the regulations.   China  still  does  not  possess  the  regulatory framework and administrative capacity to fully deal with large-scale immigration. Currently, the trend is towards a more integrated approach that facilitates the entry and stay of foreigners. The recognition that foreigners are there to stay also comes with the necessity to cater to their needs, such as education for their children and the right to profess their religion in churches, mosques, or temples. However, the  normalization  of  immigration  also  means  that, increasingly, foreign residents are only entitled to the rights that Chinese citizens enjoy as well, and should no longer get privileged treatment.   Yet  in  certain  respects,  the  normalization  of immigration will continue to be less than straightforward as it touches on some politically very sensitive issues. In these areas, foreigners are still treated on the basis of the old exclusionary discourse as carriers of subversive influences (or “spiritual pollution” in the CCP’s own terminology) that may  harm  Chinese  society  and  even  the  rule  of  the Communist Party. In addition, as we have seen, a new perception  is  emerging  that  not  all  of  immigration  is necessarily a good thing. The growth of a “foreign floating population” is considered a burden on Chinese society, while  immigration  is  also  associated  with  terrorism, subversive activities and international organized crime. As a result,  an  increasing  emphasis  on  control  and  national security in addition to service and equal treatment is to be expected in immigration management.  China Review Summer 2010  An African woman sells traditional African wares at an Expo event in Wuhan chinafotopress 

China's Immigrant Population

NARCIS 

https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2933832/download

China's Immigrant Population

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Leiden University Scholary Publications

NARCIS