Urbanization With Chinese Characteristics The Hukou System And Migration

Many agree that rapid urbanization in China in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is a mega process significantly reshaping China and the global economy. China’s urbanization also carries a certain mystique, which has long fascinated generations of scholars and journalists alike. As it has turned out, many of the asserted Chinese feats are mostly fancied claims or gross misinterpretations (of statistics, for example). There does exist, however, an urbanization that displays rather uncommon "Chinese" characteristics that remain to inadequately understood. Building on his three decades of careful research, Professor Kam Wing Chan expertly dissects the complexity of China’s hukou system, migration, urbanization and their interrelationships in this set of journal articles published in the last ten years. These works range from seminal papers on Chinese urban definitions and statistics; and broad-perspective analysis of the hukou system of its first semi-centennial; to examinations of migration trends and geography; and critical evaluations of China’s 2014 urbanization blueprint and hukou reform plan. This convenient assemblage contains many of Chan’s recent important works. Together they also form a relatively coherent set on this topic. They are essential readings to anyone serious about gaining a true understanding of the prodigious urbanization in contemporary China.

China’s unprecedented urbanization is underpinned by not only massive rural-urban migration but also a household registration system embedded in a territorial hierarchy that produces lingering urban-rural duality. The mid-1990s onwards witnessed increasing reliance on land revenues by municipal governments, causing repeated redrawing of city boundaries to incorporate surrounding countryside. The identification of real estate as a growth anchor further fueled urban expansion. Sprawling commodity housing estates proliferate on urban-rural fringes, juxtaposed with historical villages undergoing intense densification. The traditional urban core and work-unit compounds also undergo wholesale redevelopment. Alongside large influx of migrants, major reshuffling of population has taken place inside metropolitan areas. Chinese cities today are more differentiated than ever, with new communities superimposing and superseding older ones. The rise of the urban middle class, in particular, has facilitated the formation of homeowners’ associations, and poses major challenges to hitherto state dominated local governance. The present volume tries to more deeply unravel and delineate the intertwining forms and processes outlined above from a variety of angles: circulatory, mobility and precariousness; urbanization, diversity and segregation; and community and local governance. Contributors include scholars of Chinese cities from mainland China, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and the United States. This volume was previously published as a special issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics.

China on the Move offers a new and more thorough explanation of migration, which integrates knowledge from geography, population studies, sociology and politics; to help us understand the processes of social, political, and economic change associated with powerful migration streams so essential to Chinese development. Using a large body of research, clear and attractive illustrations (maps, tables, and charts) of findings based on census, survey and field data, and selected qualitative material such as migrants’ narratives, this book provides an updated, systematic, empirically rich, multifaceted and lively analysis of migration in China.

Given China’s rapid economic growth and massive urbanization, no one in the world can ignore what is happening in urban China. This book is a critical review of existing urban China research, which is found wanting due to the decontextualized use of theories and concepts developed in the West. Urban China Reframed: A Critical Appreciation consists of epistemological, theoretical and methodological contributions to remedy these limitations by focusing on a number of relevant topics. First, models are widely employed in any study, and China nowadays has invoked models like city system, zones and global city in socio-economic development. How to interpret them in terms of knowledge production in a strong party-state? Second, given the global prevalence of neoliberalism, it is an important debate whether neoliberalism is applicable to China. Third, what is urban ideology in China? How to contextualize it? Are debates about the differentiation between the city and urbanization relevant to China? Fourth, massive rural-urban migration in China has taken place within its mega rural-urban dual system, an institution that has persisted since the 1950s. How does it manifest nowadays? Fifth, has the town-country divide in China, like in the West, disappeared? If not, how can one interpret China’s town-country relations, within the politics and administration of the Chinese state? Sixth, how to decipher the territorial development in the Pearl River Delta, the "world’s factory," under the auspices of the state? The collection of essays in this volume contributes to the theoretical understanding of urban China. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Eurasian Geography and Economics.

China's management of urbanization is an under-appreciated factor in the regime's longevity. The Chinese Communist Party fears "Latin Americanization" -- the emergence of highly unequal megacities with their attendant slums and social unrest. Such cities threaten the survival of nondemocratic regimes. To combat the threat, many regimes, including China's, favor cities in policymaking. Cities and Stability shows this "urban bias" to be a Faustian Bargain: cities may be stabilized for a time, but the massive in-migration from the countryside that results can generate the conditions for political upheaval. Through its hukou system of internal migration restrictions, China has avoided this dilemma, simultaneously aiding urbanites and keeping farmers in the countryside. The system helped prevent social upheaval even during the Great Recession, when tens of millions of laid-off migrant workers dispersed from coastal cities. Jeremy Wallace's powerful account forces us to rethink the relationship between cities and political stability throughout the developing world.

Based upon an analysis of a national survey of migration conducted in late 1986 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this book provides analyses of the volume and direction of movement, the characteristics and motivation of those who move, and the consequences of their moving.

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, once named urbanization in China and the new technical revolution led by the United States as the two great events shaping the world of the 21st century. British specialist Tom Miller refers to China s urbanization as the greatest migration in human history. China's Urbanization: Migration by the Millions is a full-range description of how millions of farmers in China became urban citizens in different periods of history. It further explores the deep-rooted issues of the country s land system and household registration system, issues that will be confronted by urbanization for a long time to come. China is the world s largest single-country population transfer and urbanization country. Its urbanization is faced with ever more stringent constraints on resources and environment. This means China has to take a brand new path of urbanization with Chinese characteristics. Through this book, readers can get both the ropes of official and mainstream views on the new urbanization initiative and get familiar with multi-directional probes on this issue in academic circles so they may gain a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the whole picture. China Urbanization Studies book series will select best work on China urbanization from inside and outside China. It includes Chinese and non-Chinese perspective, from instruction, empirical or policy-oriented studies, macroscopic and microscopic research, to theoretical work. It is published jointly between Global China Press and different Chinese publishers. The UK-based Global China Press (GCP) is the first publisher specializing in dual language publications that focus on Chinese perspectives of the world and human knowledge and non-Chinese perspectives of China in a global context. The co-publisher of the present volume, New World Press (NWP), was founded in 1951, and is a member of the China International Publishing Group (CIPG). It publishes multilingual books on social sciences, literature, management and other disciplines that serve to introduce China to the world. As early as the 1980s, NWP published the China Study series in English, covering China s economy, politics, ethnicity, population, history, sociology and anthropology, and including Fei Xiaotong s Toward a People s Anthropology (1981), Chinese Village Close-Up (1982) and Small Towns in China (1986). NWP is republishing the China Study series jointly with GCP, supplemented by new titles. About the Editors China Urbanization Studies book series is edited jointly by Mr Li Tie, Director General of the China Center for Urban Development (CCUD), China, and Professor Li Qiang, Dean of School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University, with Managing Editor Dr Liu Jiayan, Associate Professor of Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, China. China's Urbanization: Migration by the Millions is edited by Xie Chuntao, a native of Linshu County, Shandong Province, and a professor and director of the CPC History Teaching and Research Department at the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC. He took charge of the school s press sector for some time before switching back to teaching. He is author of many books, most notably: Turmoil of the Great Leap Forward, A Brief History of the 1959 Mount Lushan Meeting, A History of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, China in Transition: from 1976 to 1982, An Illustrated History of the 50 Years of the PRC, and China Through the Ages from Confucius to Deng (English edition), Why and How the CPC Works in China (Chinese and English editions), Governing China: How the CPC Works (Chinese and English editions), Learn from Mao Zedong, Introduction to the Communist Party of China, and Challenges for China: How the CPC Makes Progress (Chinese and English editions), Campaigns Against Corruption: How the CPC Fights."