Differentiating citizenship in urban China: a case study of Dongguan city

Abstract

Until recently, a Chinese rural-to-urban migrant worker’s citizenship was primarily seen as a matter of household registration (hukou), since these workers were excluded from China’s urban hukou system and therefore did not share in the benefits of urban citizenship. This conception of Chinese migrant worker’s citizenship is no longer entirely accurate. Using the case of the ‘points system’ implemented in Dongguan city, this article examines in detail the citizenship demands of migrant workers, the government’s responses, and the gaps between the demands and the response. Based on Dongguan’s experience, a ‘differentiated citizenship’ structure is becoming universal in Chinese cities. The development of urban citizenship for these migrant workers is along the path of ‘greater inclusion but differentiated exclusion.’

Keywords:

• Differentiated citizenship
• peasant worker
• hukou
• points system
• Dongguan city

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Yasemin Soysal, Sophia Woodman, Baogang He, Adrian Favell, Zhang Chong and Xu Shuqing for their helpful comments on the drafts of this article.

Notes

1. Chinese peasant workers are also often called farm-workers, migrant workers, and rural-urban migrant workers. This article adopts the term ‘peasant worker’ in order to emphasize the unique characteristics of these workers in China. The term ‘peasant worker’ focuses more on the worker’s social status as a peasant rather than the term ‘worker,’ which emphasizes their occupation. This term is also more specific than the term ‘migrant worker’.

2. ‘Migrant worker’ includes a broader range of citizens than the term ‘peasant worker.’ A migrant worker could refer to any worker from another province or city; for hukou status purposes, it is very inexact. However, as mentioned in note 1, the term ‘peasant worker’ identifies the citizen as having peasant hukou status.

3. China established a pure planed economy (jihua jingji) in the mid-1950s, which regarded market and private capital as the symbol of capitalism. Though this type of economy brought China many benefits, lack of efficiency was its major defect. After Deng Xiaoping came to power at the end of the 1970s, he gradually reintroduced the market economy system. Over the next three decades, this reform brought both rapid economic growth and transformative societal changes.

4. Chinese People’s Congress (CPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have different functions in China’s regime. The CPC is China’s legislative branch and is responsible for lawmaking. The CPPCC is China’s consultative branch and it offers political advice to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other political organizations.