Author: Jason Young, Victoria University of Wellington

Since the early 1980s, hundreds of millions of migrants have entered urban areas without full urban status. In conjunction with local industries these migrants put increasing pressure on the state to abolish the hukou system, which requires Chinese citizens to hold a valid residency permit. The state has responded by liberalising two key areas of hukou management but failed to address the fundamental issue of civic inequality.

Today, hukou remains an important governing instrument to promote economic development, maintain social stability and manage migration and urbanisation but these blunt development tools increasingly threaten to dampen the growing dynamism of Chinese society and economy. Read more…

Author: Edward Kus

China is obviously a nation grappling with the contradictions embodied by its desire for development and its recent (and more ancient) past. The recent school stabbings highlight some acute social issues in China, but reactions among my acquaintances demonstrate how China increasingly seems to be looking in on itself for answers rather than to the rest of the world.

Two historically important aspects of Chinese thought are finding new footing in contemporary Chinese society. The first concept is Sino-centralism and the second is known as the Sino-‘barbarian’ dichotomy. Read more…

Author: Jerome Cohen, NYU

The most formidable challenge to China’s establishment of a credible ‘rule of law’ is neither the quality of its legislation nor the professional competence of its judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police. Laws and the skills of those who apply them have both witnessed substantial progress in the People’s Republic during the past three decades.

The real challenge to the administration of justice in China is, rather, the undue intrusion of politics and, even more broadly, of ‘guanxi’, the network of interpersonal relations of mutual protection, benefit and dependency that is one of the enduring hallmarks of Chinese society. Read more…

Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington

Yes it’s true – hukou (household registration) reform is again back in vogue in China’s ‘post-crisis’ conversations. Premier Wen Jiabao has been talking about it and, unusually the catch phrase has also been placed in the first ‘Central Document’ of 2010. Following the lead of these two sources, hundreds of newspaper articles and commentaries have opined on it in the last few weeks. On March 1, 13 big-city newspapers from 11 provinces in China also made a rare joint appeal for accelerating reform of the hukou system in a co-signed editorial. In sum, the issue is firmly in the spotlight, and hopes have been raised for some real hukou reform.

The hukou system is a big deal in the People’s Republic.  For the past 52 years, the system has served to segregate the rural and the urban populations, initially in geographical terms, but more fundamentally, in social, economic and political terms. Read more…

Author: Ran Tao, Renmin University

‘Hukou reform’ is now becoming a catchphrase in the Chinese media and in China’s policy making circles. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in an exclusive interview with the Xinhua News Agency on December 27, 2009, said that China will steadily advance the reform of its decades-long household registration system in order to ensure migrant workers have the same rights as city dwellers.

The importance attached to hukou reform is also reflected in the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘No. 1 Central Committee Document’, promulgated at the end of January 2010. Read more…

Author: Richard Rigby, ANU

Challenge is a word that carries a heavy burden of nuance: it can convey a sense of threat, it can be an inspiration, it poses questions – often difficult ones – and it can also be double-edged, in that the challenge frequently applies as much to the alleged challenger as it does to those on the receiving end. Where China is concerned, the word is appropriate in every sense; but an important part of the challenge is precisely to decide which aspect is of the greatest importance. Only having done this can we attempt to frame policies, or at least provide the best possible advice to the policymakers, which will enable us to meet the challenge that today’s — and tomorrow’s — China poses to us, and to itself.

If there is a single word that should be applied to China, whether speaking of its international impact or its domestic situation, it should be ‘complexity’. Read more…

Authors: Peter Drysdale and Shiro Armstrong, ANU

Yang Yao, Deputy Dean of the National School of Development and the Director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, argues in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs that a radical shift in gear on China’s political reform is now necessary to maintaining growth with social harmony.

‘Beijing’s ongoing efforts to promote GDP growth’, he argues, ‘will inevitably result in infringements on people’s economic and political rights. For example, arbitrary land acquisitions are still prevalent in some cities, the government closely monitors the Internet, labour unions are suppressed, and workers have to endure long hours and unsafe conditions. Chinese citizens will not remain silent in the face of these infringements, and their discontent will inevitably lead to periodic resistance. Before long, some form of explicit political transition that allows ordinary citizens to take part in the political process will be necessary.’

Read more…

Author: Geremie R. Barmé, ANU

As the contretemps involving Google’s conflicted presence in the People’s Republic of China unfolds, it is timely to recall one anniversary that passed by all but unnoticed in 2009: that of a covert Cold War-era clash between John Foster Dulles and Mao Zedong in 1959. This overlooked anniversary is worth recalling now, since it is of particular relevance to contextualising the remarks—and the Chinese response to those remarks—that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made regarding Internet freedom and U.S. policy in Washington on 21 January 2010 (see here for full text of Clinton’s speech).

In the speech, Clinton reminds her audience of comments that President Barack Obama made on Internet freedom during the webcast section of his November ‘town hall meeting’ in Shanghai. Read more…

Author: Sherry Tao Kong, ANU

In December 2009 China’s Central Economic Work Conference announced policy initiatives of hukou (household registration) reform and the absorption of migrant workers into small-medium cities. Although the renewed national strategy can certainly be seen as a welcome sign to address this fundamental issue, the majority of migrants are clustered in metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The local governments in these cities will need to devise their own coping strategies to deal with the pressure and tension over limited infrastructure and resources.

Beginning last year, Shanghai and a number of other cities have started a ‘point system’ to grant ‘well-qualified’ migrant workers permanent residency. Read more…

Author: James Fallows

I have not yet been able to reach my friends in China to discuss the story of Google’s threatened withdrawal from China, so for now I am judging the Google response strictly by what the company has posted on its ‘Official Blog,’ here, and my observations from dealing with Google-China officials while overseas. Therefore this will epitomise the Web-age reaction to a breaking news story, in that it will be a first imperfect assessment, subject to revision as new facts come in.

This development is significant for Google, and while it is only marginally significant for developments inside China, it is potentially very significant for China’s relations with the rest of the world. Read more…

Author: Yiping Huang, Peking University and ANU

As the year 2009 fades into the distance in the rear view mirror, the Chinese economy has entered into unknown territory in 2010. Investors are universally far more upbeat than one year ago. Policymakers talk busily about adjusting economic structure as the new top policy priority, seeing no risk in achieving above 8 per cent growth.

For some, China’s ability to achieve strong growth amid global recession was the biggest surprise of 2009. To me, it was not. The Chinese government’s abilities in mobilising resources have strengthened, not weakened, significantly during the past decade. If the government really believed that 8 per cent growth was critical, then that would happen. Read more…

Author: Pradumna B. Rana, National University of Singapore

Much has been written on the economic rise of China and India and the deepening of integration between these two Asian giants and the rest of Asia more generally. Asia’s emergence and integration is, no doubt, of contemporary interest. However, Asian integration is not without historical precedent and it would be more appropriate to refer to Asia’s ‘re-emergence’ and ‘re-integration’.

During the first eighteen centuries after the birth of Christ, Asia (mainly China and India) accounted for the largest share of world output. Read more…

Author: Peter Yuan Cai, ANU and Tsinghua

The Chinese press has been saturated recently with the coverage of a sensational trial in the mountainous mega-city of Chongqing, where hundreds of gangsters and corrupt officials have been brought before the dock to face the music. The trial has all the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster: sexual scandals involving dazzling starlets and brawny gigolos, a web of underground casinos, and the complicity of corrupt police officers. The powerful mayor of Chongqing, and a member of the politburo, Bo Xilai told the press that the activities of mafia were so rampant that they were left with no choice but to react.

According to official statistics released by authorities in Chongqing, 1544 gangsters have been detained and over 1.53 billion Yuan in illegal assets have been seized. Read more…

Author: Peter Yuan Cai, ANU and Adelaide

It was the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post that first dropped the bomb that tectonic change had just occurred in the upper echelons of the influential Chinese business magazine, Caijing. The general business manager, Daphne Wu, tendered her resignation along with eight of her nine senior colleagues. This was only the first crack in the dyke, with a mass exodus of editors and investigative journalists occurring shortly thereafter. The inevitable Götterdämmerung will be when the charismatic and influential managing editor Hu Shuli leaves the magazine that she founded more than a decade ago.

This story would be unremarkable had it not been for the semi-deified status of Hu Shuli as the most influential financial journalist in China and Caijing’s reputation as one of the very few trusted media sources in a country dominated by party mouthpieces. Read more…

Author: Stanley Lubman, Berkeley

China has come a long way in creating a legal system—and has a long way to go if the avowed aim of ‘ruling the country by law’ is to be realized. At the same time, considering that legal development has really been carried out for only half of the time that has elapsed since the founding of the People’s Republic, the accomplishments are considerable.

What remains in doubt is the depth of the commitment of the current Chinese leadership to further develop key institutions, and whether Chinese society will be stable enough to nourish those institutions.

Read more…