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Abstract
Since Reform and Opening Up, the Chinese government has been under pressure regarding policy on the residence of foreign migrants to the country. In response, the Chinese government released a document entitled the Regulations of the PRC on the Administration of Permanent Residence of Foreigners in February 2020, which has roused fierce social opposition, as reflected in Chinese netizens’ attitudes towards foreign immigrants and citizenship identity. Based on online discussions in the Zhihu community, in this paper, we investigated the exclusive and inclusive boundaries of Chinese netizens’ citizenship identity through quantitative and thematic textual analyses. The exclusive boundary includes racial and historical discourses that raise insurmountable walls between Chinese people and foreign immigrants, while the inclusive boundary is reflected in citizenship rights and access criteria. The issues of ‘super-national treatment’ (privileges enjoyed by foreign nationals with permanent Chinese residency) and ‘low access criteria’ (the relative ease with which foreign immigrants can obtain permanent residence in China) for foreign immigrants have weakened the openness of the inclusive boundary, causing netizens who were once willing to accept foreign immigrants to oppose the presence of non-native groups in the country. This study deepens our understanding of Chinese netizens’ citizenship identity and contributes to citizenship identity theory.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Disclosure statement
There are no potential conflicts of interest in connection with this paper.
Notes
1 National Bureau of Statistics of China, “2010 nian diliuci quanguo renkou pucha jieshou pucha dengji de gangaotai jumin he waijirenyuan zhuyao shuju”; “Diqici quanguo renkou pucha gongbao (dibahao).”
2 Wang, Zhongguo guoji yimin baogao 2014.
3 Wang, Zhongguo guoji yimin baogao 2014.
4 The Regulations paralyzed the website, online article from the following website: https://www.aisoutu.com/a/230569, visited on April 16, 2022.
5 Guo, Gongminshenfen de hexin wenti; Heater, What Is Citizenship; Janoski, Citizenship and Civil Society; Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays.
6 Hainmueller and Hopkins, “Public Attitudes Toward Immigration”; Gu, Zhang and Lin, “Factors Affecting Attitudes Toward Migrants”; Liu and Shao, “Public Opinion Backlash Against China’s International Expansion.”
7 Baldassar and Raffaeta, “It’s Complicated, Isn’t It”; Isin and Wood, Citizenship and Identity.
8 Isin and Nyers, “Introduction: Globalizing Citizenship Studies.”
9 Citizenship and race are two different but intertwined concepts. As just defined, citizenship has multiple meanings which can connect to racism in particular situations. From an institutional perspective, citizenship refers to the criteria that a nation-state gives to its ‘nationals’, which is embodied in the nationality law. According to prevailing contemporary practice, Jus soli and Jus sanguinis are two basic principles of citizenship, while ‘naturalisation’ can supplement both. According to Jus soli, a baby automatically receives the citizenship of the country where he/she is born, regardless of the parents’ nationalities. Alternatively, in Jus sanguinis, a baby inherits nationality from his/her parents regardless of the country of birth. ‘Naturalisation’ refers to permitting foreigners to obtain citizenship of the country they intend to join based on length of residence, education, loyalty, or investment. ‘Blood’ is a neutral element in Jus sanguinis that only shows the characteristics of ‘racism’ when overemphasised. This article mainly discusses the various views of Chinese netizens regarding the criteria for foreigners to obtain the right of permanent residence in China, and is thus more so related to citizenship. If racism were taken as the research perspective, it would only include a small number of netizens who hold extreme attitudes towards foreign immigrants, while excluding most netizens who hold inclusive and neutral attitudes.
10 Isin and Nyers, “Introduction: Globalizing Citizenship Studies.”
11 Heater, What Is Citizenship; Isin and Wood, Citizenship and Identity; Janoski, Citizenship and Civil Society; Portis, “Citizenship & Personal Identity”; Rajchman, The Identity in Question.
12 Heater, What Is Citizenship, 182.
13 Isin and Wood, Citizenship and Identity, 4.
14 Heater, What Is Citizenship, 184.
15 Guo, Gongminshenfen de hexin wenti, The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Citizenship; Habermas, “Citizenship and National Identity”; Isin and Wood, Citizenship and Identity.
16 Dagger, Civic Virtues; Weber, The City.
17 Beiner, “Why Citizenship Constitutes a Theoretical Problem in The Last Decade of The Twentieth Century”; Brewer, “Social Identity and Citizenship in Pluralistic Society”; Parekh, “Dilemmas of A Multicultural Theory of Citizenship”; Rose, Governing the Soul; Young, “Polity and group difference.”
18 Barbieri, Ethics of Citizenship; Bissoondath, Selling Illusions.
19 Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, Multicultural Citizenship.
20 Habermas, “Citizenship and National Identity”, Between Facts and Norms.
21 Heater, World Citizenship.
22 Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China.
23 Hukou, also called the ‘household registration system’, was established in 1958. It divides Chinese households into urban and rural households, each entailing different citizenship rights, especially in terms of social rights. See Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China.
24 Migrant workers are also called ‘peasant workers’ in China. These individuals are rural dwellers who come to work in cities but are forced to retain their rural hukou status. This social distinction took effect after the Reform and Opening Up at the end of the 1970s. See Guo, “Differentiating Citizenship in Urban China”; Pasquali, “Migration Regimes and The Governance of Citizenship”; Woodman, “Legitimating Exclusion and Inclusion.”
25 Xiong, “The Broken Ladder”; Xiong and Li, “Citizenship Education as NGO Intervention”, “Industrial Ecology and Local Citizenship of Migrant Children in Urban China”; Xu, School Leadership, Citizenship Education and Politics in China.
26 Guo, “Rights in Action”; Jakimow, “Resistance Through Accommodation”, China’s Citizenship Challenge.
27 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany.
28 Wang, “Confucianism and Citizenship.”
29 Janoski, “Citizenship in China.”
30 Wang, “Confucianism and Citizenship.”
31 Li, “Xifang jindai minzu guannian he huayizhibian de jiaohui.”
32 These were early revolutionaries in modern China, one of whom was Sun Yat-Sen, the first president of the Republic of China established in 1912, after the Qing court was overthrown.
33 Liang, “Lishi shang zhongguo minzu zhi guancha.”
34 The Xinhai Revolution, which took place in 1911, refers to the end of traditional dynasties and the start of the modern era in China.
35 Huang, “Xiandai zhonghua minzu guannian xingcheng de lishi kaocha”; Zheng, “Zhongguo jindai minzuzhuyi yu zhonghua minzu ziwoyishi de juexing.”
36 State Ethnic Affairs Commission, Zhongguo minzu tongji nianjian 2018.
37 Huang, Yang and Meng, “National Identity of Locality.”
38 Yang, “Learning to Be Safe Citizens.”
39 Xiong and Huang, “The Citizenship of Middle Class in China.”
40 Xu, “Citizenship Institutions in Chinese Peasant-Workers’ Everyday Life”; Zhao et al., “Vulnerability of Chinese Rural-To-Urban Migrants to Social Exclusion”; Zhou et al.,
“Intra-national Citizenship and Dual-hukou Strategies Among Migrant Families in China”; Zhou et al., “To Settle but Not Convert Hukou Among Rural Migrants in Urban China.”
41 China Internet Network Information Centre, The 50th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China.
42 Zhihu Company, “Company News: Zhihu Inc Reports Second Quarter and First Half 2022.”
43 Wan, “What is Zhihu?”
44 Zhang, “Right-Wing Populism with Chinese Characteristics.”
45 Wang, “Zhihu chuangshiren zhouyuan.”
46 Lv, “Wo zai zhihu huahuati”; Yin, “Wangluo quanshi shequn de guojia rentong jiangou”; Zou, “Zimeiti de zhuzuoquan baohu.”
47 Peng et al., “Post-Reform Gender Politics”; Peng et al., “Boris Johnson in Hospital.”
48 Peng et al., “Post-Reform Gender Politics”; Peng et al., “Boris Johnson in Hospital.”
49 Grimmer and Stewart, “Text as Data.”
50 Blei et al., “Latent Dirichlet allocation.”
51 Anderson et al., “Thematic and Textual Analysis Method for Developing Social Validity Questionnaires in Applied Behavior Analysis”; Braun and Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology”; Tuurosong et al., “Stylistics as An Approach to Discourse Analysis.”
52 Braun and Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.”
53 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany.
54 Zheng, “Zhongguo jindai minzuzhuyi yu zhonghua minzu ziwoyishi de juexing.”
55 Zhihu post QA378-2.29.
56 ‘Descendants of the dragon’ (long de chuanren) refers to the notion that the Chinese are descended from a common ancestor, with the dragon representing Chinese culture. ‘Descendants of Huangdi and Yandi’ (yanhuang zisun) has the same meaning as ‘descendants of the dragon’; Huangdi and Yandi represent the oldest Chinese ancestors in Chinese legends.
57 Pang, Baqiannian zhongguo longwenhua.
58 Zhihu post QA980-3.2.
59 National Bureau of Statistics of China, “2010 nian diliuci quanguo renkou pucha jieshou pucha dengji de gangaotai jumin he waijirenyuan zhuyao shuju.”
60 Zhihu post QA252-3.2.
61 Zhihu post QA253-3.2
62 Qin Shihuang, the first emperor in Chinese history, and Han Wudi are regarded by many Chinese people as two of the greatest emperors in traditional Chinese history.
63 Zhihu post QA1177-3.1.
64 Zhihu post QA982-3.2.
65 Carlson, “A Flawed Perspective.”
66 The Anshi Rebellion took place in the 8th century and marked the weakening and eventual collapse of the Tang dynasty.
67 Zhihu post QA172-3.1
68 Zhihu post QA539-3.2
69 Zhihu post QA539-3.2
70 Zhihu post QA28-3.2.
71 Callahan, “History, Identity, and Security”; Zheng, “Zhongguo jindai minzuzhuyi yu zhonghua minzu ziwoyishi de juexing.”
72 Yu, “Zaihua waiguoren fanzui de xingshi falv yingdui.”
73 Hu, “Weishenme zheme duoren fandui waiguorenyongjutiaoli.” Available at: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/110233297.
74 Zhihu article ZL110096111-3.15.
75 Zhihu article ZL110096111-3.15.
76 Vortherms, “Localized Citizenships”; Zhao et al., “Vulnerability of Chinese Rural-To-Urban Migrants to Social Exclusion.”
77 Spencer, “Civic Nationalism, Civic Nations and The Problem of Migration.”
78 Green, “Who Can Enter?”
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Notes on contributors
Zhonghua Guo
Zhonghua Guo is a Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics, Nanjing University, China. His academic interests include citizenship studies, conceptual studies, and state theories. He has published widely in the field of citizenship studies, including, as a guest editor, editing four volumes of special issues on Citizenship Studies, Journal of Chinese Political Science, and Journal of Chinese Governance. He is also the sole editor of The Routledge Handbook of Chinese citizenship, which was published by Routledge in 2021.
Zhuozhao Tao
Zhuozhao Tao is a master’s student in the School of Government at Sun Yat-Sen University. His academic interests mainly focus on Chinese citizenship studies.