Across the conceptual divide? Chinese migration policies seen through historical and comparative lenses

Abstract

This article analyses Chinese migration policies through historical and comparative lenses in an attempt to cross conceptual divides in existing literature on migration policies. The first part of the article offers an empirically grounded overview of developments in Chinese migration policies in the two decades after the regime changes of 1949 and 1978. A second analytical section brings together literature on the Global North, Global South, and Asian and Chinese migrations and migration policies. The article posits the following three main points. First, literature on the Global South is valuable for theorising Chinese migration policies in that it highlights emigration and development rather than immigration as in Hollifield’s ‘migration state’. However, in prioritising economic objectives, it fails to consider Chinese migration policies in relation to identity formation and nation-building under the influence of wars and decolonisation processes – what Adamson and Tsourapas have called ‘nationalising’ policies. Second, the article notes the significance of ethnic return migration in Chinese policies, which is overlooked in literature on the Global South, but examined in literature on Asian migrations. Finally, the article posits that the nexus between internal and external migration in a Chinese context offers critical insights for theorising migration policies.

Keywords:

• Chinese migration policies
• migration state
• Global North
• Global South
• Asian migrations
• diaspora engagement policies

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the two anonymous reviewers, as well as Hélène Thiollet and Katharina Natter, for constructive comments on an earlier draft of the article. She also expresses thanks to the participants of the workshop ‘The Politics of Migration Policies: Towards an Empirically Grounded, Comparative Political Theory of Migration Politics’ held in Paris at the SciencesPo Center for International Studies in December 2018, for the fruitful discussions that contributed to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence Française de Développement/French Development Agency [grant number IRS/ECO/492-2018] and by a Tier 1 Grant, Singapore Ministry of Education/Nanyang Technological University [AcFR grant number RG 78/16].

Notes on contributors

Els van Dongen

Els van Dongen is Associate Professor of history at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She holds a PhD in Chinese studies from Leiden University (the Netherlands) and a Postgraduate Diploma in international relations and conflict management from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). Her research and teaching focus on transnational and transregional interactions pertaining to China and Asia through the lens of migration and intellectual and cultural exchanges. She is also interested in changing notions of governance in the field of migration policies, both historically and today. Her publications have appeared in Asian Studies Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Journal of Contemporary China, among others. She is the author of Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989 (Cambridge University Press, 2019).