Okay thank you so much Eli for the kind introduction.
So I'd like to start with these two scenes that are characteristic I think of
internal migration in China. The first one is quite well known which is the eviction
of migrant workers in low-income sectors in Beijing in December 2017, and this was following
a fire um in the migrant worker department in a suburbs of Beijing, that killed 19 people.
And um the people were referred to as "low end population" with quotation marks in some official
documents. Um and then the second one is probably less known. It's a farewell a farewell event for
the so-called returnee children to say goodbye to Shenzhen. So they have been grown up in the city,
but then they have to return to the hometown of their parents to continue their education.
And this was organized by some civil society organizations, and they were doing it in six
cities - in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Xiamen, some other cities. And according to this
organization, 90,000 students finishing primary school from these six cities have to go back,
to "go back in", again in quotation marks because they have little to no experience with um those
places. The places are the hometown of their parents, and they will become left behind children
there because their parents will continue to work in these coastal cities.
So with this, I'd like to invite you to think about the relativity of membership, and
boundaries of membership, and rights. So it's about when does crossing
boundaries, internal boundaries within the nation state matter. And when does one become a migrant?
And that is to say their movement across certain socially constructed
boundaries becomes problematized as an object of governing. A person migrating from, for example,
to Copenhagen, where I am based now wouldn't be considered a migrant. In fact a Swedish citizen
moving from Stockholm to Copenhagen usually isn't a migrant either. That means their mobility
isn't a problem, or isn't problematized by the government. And the rally have problems accessing
equal civil, political, and uh social rights just like um the locals. Apart from formal legal
rights, there is also the problem of identity and belonging of course in the context of
international migration. And a second generation immigrant from Danish with Danish citizenship
from a non-western country is still framed as a migrant in the public discourse in this country.
All this is to say that migration is a lot more than crossing territorial boundaries,
and also a lot more than crossing national territorial boundaries.
Um so this is the outline of my presentation today. I'll start with some boring conceptual
issues, um clarifying some some um concepts. And then I'll look at Hukou. I spend much more
time on the second topic than what I'll do with this third topic, because the third
topic is sort of work in progress. Um so I spent much of the time talking about Hukou reforms,
and what that means for differentiated citizenship in contemporary China.
And then I'll talk a little on suzhi as a marker of difference in hierarchy, and how it defines
an ideal citizenry.
So, conventional approaches to citizenship talk about these different layers or elements of
the concept. Um typically legal status, the passport you have, the nationality you have on
your passport, and the kind of rights it endows. Those practice or democratic participation,
and identity, so normally in conventional sort of citizenship theory, you could say that liberal,
there are liberal republican, and communitarian conceptions of of it. And with respect to focus on
rights, liberal concept would focus on rights; republican concept would focus on democratic
participation; and the the communitarian approach would focus on identity and so on.
Um but beyond this, two alternative perspectives have in particular shaped my initial interests
in citizenship studies. The first looks at those acts or raptures even of performances
beyond our normal understanding of what democratic participation means.
And through which the excluded such as undocumented migrants or asylum seekers, refugees
constitute themselves as citizens or political subjects. And then the second one focuses on
citizenship as governmental strategies that produce exclusions, and stratifications. Um and
these technologies and discourses of citizenship also create specific forms of subjectivity.
For example, liberal citizenship would be about rational, autonomous, autonomous self-interests,
liberal subjects. So this is what I mean when I talk about technology of citizenship in the title.
So today when I want to talk about Hukou and suzhi as technologies of citizenship in China.
And um if I use Isin's
this theorists, um the theorist that is best known for the acts of citizenship approach.
Um we could say that Hukou is about the extent of citizenship so defining the boundary of rights,
and suzhi is about the depth of citizenship, um about the qualities of what an ideal modern
citizen means, or entails, requires. Um but maybe there are better terms. I think there
are probably better terms to to describe these um dimensions of Chinese citizenship.
So next I also want to mention the concept of social citizenship.
Um one of one of the best known theorists of this is English British sociologist T.H. Marshall,
who defines social citizenship as in a nutshell the right to live the life of a civilized being,
according to the standards prevailing in the society. And in concrete terms,
this typically is comprised of welfare institutions, ideals of national solidarity,
and provision of social rights as something distinct from civil and political rights. And
of course this is quite a Eurocentric framework, and it's also needs to be put into the historical
context. And so it's mainly a 20th century development in the European welfare state.
From the bottom up perspective you could say it's resulted from, is achieved
through labor struggles. And from a top-down perspective you could say that it's sort of
responses taken by the state to neutralize the antagonism between capital and labor.
The reason why this is relevant is because I conceptualize Hukou
as a form of muscle level social citizenship, which to a large degree is about the portability
of social rights under conditions of cross-border mobility movement.
Now the problematization of international mobility is not unique to contemporary China,
as the construction of social citizenship always entails exclusion, inclusion and boundary making.
So international mobility was a problem before the establishment of national, social citizenship in
the European welfare state. Um and in the United States, there's a famous case called Edward versus
California. California which you might have heard of, basically California prohibited the bringing
of indigent persons from elsewhere to the state in their welfare and institutions code.
And in 1941 the supreme court decided that the law was unconstitutional.
A final point about the final um slides in my conceptual issues section.
Um so this has to do with the translation of citizenship in in Chinese right. So
the interesting thing about this is that you have two ways of translating or
articulating this concept in Chinese, um but also in other eastern East Asian languages like in
Japanese as far as I know. Um nowadays, I think it's more common to say gongmin but still there
are in older translations, and in certain cases, you could still see a citizen as shimin. And
in civil society, in the translation of civil society, there is something similar. So you
have gongmin society and shimin society with one emphasizing publicness, and another emphasizing
urbanity or the urban quality of a citizen. I actually got reminded um of this by Eli's upcoming
talk on urbanization of the people. Right so this is a policy go in the new type urbanization plan.
And it's mentioned a lot - it is a buzzword in all the discussions about
rural - urban integration and rural to urban migrants. Now I think urbanization
of the people is a good translation. But in some Chinese language academic articles, you can also
see that it's translated as citizenization in their English abstracts and so on. And
there also is a point there I think because there's always this um connection between the
idea, and the ideal of citizenship, and the urban. Um so I'll go back to this later but I think
eventually, ultimately; the urbanization of citizenization of the people entails turning
these migrants into proper urban citizens with appropriate rights, responsibilities, and certain
desirable qualities associated with the discourse of suzhi.
Now very quickly about that.
Pre-history of Hukou. The household registration system in imperial China but it's it's
it's very different from what it is now. But I think suffice it to say that, this thing,
this institution of household registration has a long history, and this also influenced the
similar practices in other East Asian countries like the Koseki in Japan. But then the functions
were very different historically, and now and they're also different in different countries.
For those of you who don't know, who didn't have any prior knowledge about this.
Um household registration - Hukou is an administrative practice, requiring all citizens
to be registered with their local Hukou authority - that is usually Public Security Bureau.
And um so it is a form of civil registration system. And civil registration systems are of
course extremely widespread across the world. And it's an essential feature of the modern states.
But what's unique of this is that your official place of registration is tied to your access to
certain social rights because the social security systems are fragmented, and locally governed. And
it can be difficult to change it when you change, when you have changed your residence. And um
so it's essentially about the the portability of social rights as I said earlier, when you go cross
go across boundaries of of those social rights. But how difficult is it it really depends. It
depends on you, and it depends on the cities you are moving to, and we'll get to that in a moment.
Next I'm going to walk you through quickly the involvement of Hukou policies in the PRC.
So everything started in 1958 when the regulation on household registration was introduced.
One interesting thing about the constitutional revision, or the constitutional amendment is
that in the 1954 version of the constitution, we had freedom of movement recognized in the
constitution. Um but then it became like only on paper after this regulation was introduced
in 1958. And then it was removed all together from the 1975 constitution that never got back.
But of course a lot of other political rights mentioned in the constitution are on paper only
too. Um but the right to freedom of movement is is absent at all. Um
so this means with this regulation, it means that people could not move freely from um
rural areas to urban areas. And there was this dual track registration system where
you have two types of Hukou. This has been abolished now.
There were agricultural and non-agriculture ,cultural types of Hukou.
And this mobility regime served to maintain the dualistic planned economy, and also of course the
dualistic welfare system, which is still very much dualistic right now - the welfare system.
Even though programs of rural - urban integration have been introduced in recent years or decades.
For example, integration of different health insurance systems in urban and rural areas began
in 2016. So quite recent. Another example is that currently rural and urban residents have different
income threshold for getting subsistence allowance or basic living benefits in most provinces.
But in places like Beijing and Shanghai, the standard has been unified. And this is a little
at the bottom of the slide is a little quote from Luo Ruiqing - the Minister of Public Security;
um justifying the regulation in 1958. So it was, he said that it was about protecting the interest
of the people as a whole. And the freedoms are freedoms with guidance not anarchism and so on.
And then after the reform and opening up.
You need migrant labor from the rural area to boost the economy in the coastal area
with that we have the regulation. They have the regulation on the management of temper
residents in cities and towns. So it means people from the rural area can seek jobs
in cities and towns provided, that they apply for and obtain a temporary residence to permit.
Um the notorious "zan zhu zheng" (temporary resident permit) and internal migrants without
this document suffered vulnerabilities similar to undocumented migrants in
the international context. Especially there was a procedure an administrative
procedure known as custody and repatriation which resulted in a tragedy. But there were
lots of tragedies resulted from that of course. But the most famous one was the Sun
Zhigang incident in 2003. That eventually ended this administrative procedure,
so people could no longer be falsely removed simply because of lack of documents.
Then after we entered the 21st century, there have been lots of initiatives programs
trying to improve the rights of migrant workers because it's now really a social problem that
a governmental problem, that increases social tension tension in society.
And um you sort of want to introduce rural urban integration plans and also
new type urbanization plans. All these have to do, one the central question to all of these programs
um is the rights, and the governance of rural to urban
migrants.
The table on the um top right corner is from my 2018 paper. It's a little dated now, because it's
the differentiated approach to Hukou acquisition. Given by the 2000, given by the state council
in the 2014 outline. Um then in recent years so from (20)14 to (20)19 to now (20)20, (20)21,
the population threshold for completely opening up has become bigger and bigger in 2014,
only towns and small cities should have an uh sort of completely open Hukou acquisition policy.
But in 2019 cities were told that cities of a one to three million urban population should
lift the restrictions. And the latest deadline from 2021 from this action plan for building
high standards market systems goes that, all cities except mega and extra large cities
meeting appropriate criteria could explore residence based Hukou registration; that means,
you know, once you are here, if you live here, then you should get a local Hukou.
Um I'll get into the implication of this later, but some of the other things talked about in these
policy papers. The first thing is abolish the distinction between
are we call agricultural and non-agricultural types of registration.
That's the type of Hukou, it's not the location of Hukou. So it doesn't mean
you can automatically change your Hukou to your place of residence. It only means that
rural and urban residents now hold the same type of registration. And the policy documents also say
we should promote equal access to basic public services based on this new type of document,
um which is "ju zhu zheng" or residence permit or residence card and the temporary residence permit
or "zan zhu zheng" has been abolished. And then new urbanization as the urbanization of people
turning um migrant workers. Rural to urban migrants to urban citizens that means having them,
giving them equal access to basic public services, but also
demanding them to acquire certain intrinsic or inherent internal qualities themselves as well.
And also I'll talk about this when I get to the suzhi part.
So basically;
I conceptualized Hukou as technology of social citizenship.
And um I think even though with lots of these reforms, it still holds true in 2021.
As it determines to a large degree one's access to state-sponsored social rights, especially
those concerning education, healthcare, housing allowance, and social security. Um and it creates
a highly exploitable and profitable labor force,
because precarious legal status especially in the era of "zan zhu zheng" or temporary
residence permit, and lack of social provisions makes them a highly um make
them highly vulnerable to exploitative market relations. Even when "zan zhu zheng" has been
abolished events like the Beijing eviction of 2017 show that the inclusion of certain sections of the
population in the city is conditional upon their migrancy, temporariness, and the portability.
Um so in that sense it's quite similar to international labor migration, especially
those temporary migration regime programs, and of course undocumented migrants whose
exploitability, and profitability also comes from um their vulnerable legal status.
Um so institutional and market factors which are not limited to Hukou. Hukou is just one among
many other factors or obstacles make some migraine workers life in the city permanently temporary. So
you see that actually only a minority of them want to have local Hukou, because even without taking
into uh taking that into account, um they are quite aware that their life and work is temporary.
Um so similar to many precarious migrant workers in the uh from the South to the global North,
this precariousness comes from both insecure legal status, and exploitative
market relations that are mutually reinforcing each other. Um in the Chinese context then this
has hugely reduced the cost of urbanization, because the city is getting lots of young and
exploitable uh migrant workers from the rural area without having to
pay for the cost of labor reproduction. Um having to pay for their health care or education,
and stuff like that. So the costs of labor reproduction are either minimal or displaced
um because they have to leave their children at home. Um so the the cost of labor reproduction
are displaced to the um countries; uh to the places of origin. Um and finally, it's a lot more
about the rights of migrant workers. It's also an instrument of population management of resource
allocation that facilitates other governmental goals, or correspondence with other governmental
goals, including industrial restructuring urban transformation and rural land ownership reforms.
Then taken together,
if you look at the trajectory
um of this, from the 1950s and to now. It has shifted from the dualistic rural-urban
segregation to a multiplication of legal statuses, boundaries, and hierarchies of citizenship.
So the inclusion, exclusion structure was was dualistic before the reform,
and now it's much more differentiated and multi-dimensional.
There are differentiated rights in the city contingent on years of residency income
educational attainment quantified contribution to society and so on,
as you will see from the point-based system used in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
And very importantly; there's a further hierarchization of mobility between cities.
Um so the hierarchy,
the main sort of boundaries not between cities and rural areas anymore, but between
different tiers of cities.
And only the only the most powerful cities have the most selective migration policies.
And another thing I want to mention is that under those projects of urban transformation
and beautification as we have seen in Beijing and Guangzhou. The right to the city is denied
also to the urban poor, with local vocal, and also in the case of Guangzhou. You'll see
similar exclusion inclusion
applies to international migrants, African immigrants, um under this name of
beautification, and urban transformation, and so on. So the boundaries are
multiplied, and it's not just about um the dualistic urban-rural segregation anymore.
Um so basically I think this is about reorganizing the spatiality of what Kean Fan Lim called
uneven economic geographical development. So basically the economic policies built on this
hierarchical organizing of space in within the Chinese states. Um so you have eastern, central,
and western regions, and initially the coastal eastern area gained the highest priority in
integrating into the global economy, and has benefited so far immensely from the kind of
migration regime we talked about. And now they are aiming to move upwards in the global value chain;
whereas um labor-intensive manufacturing industry is moving westwards to the central area.
Um so if you look at the urban master plans of these first tier cities, they all speak of
optimizing industrial, not only industrial structure, but also optimizing their
population structure. Um also if you compare this to the pre-reform era, you could say that
migration control used to be relying on direct governmental intervention only. But now it's a
combination of direct governmental intervention including introducing population caps,
and um implementing evictions and so on, and market-based mechanisms
um such as like upgrading your industrial structure, urban development projects.
Um like in Beijing, they also sort of eliminated street level small businesses.
And um
just to illustrate the the hierarchy between cities.
As you can see from this graph,
(there's a laser point) only first and second tier cities actually have net
immigration, and all the smaller cities are losing um their their
population size. And um even though Xi'an is a second tier city, but is it in the central region,
so it's really not a popular destination. And it opened up its Hukou policy in 2017 to compete
with other second-tier cities in attracting talents. And then you can see there is a
dramatic increase after this in their Hukou population,
but not so much an increase in in their um in the number of actual residents. And this is um
an entry barrier index developed by some quantitative researchers um based on Hukou
policies of different cities. And you can see there's a dramatic difference between them. And
the four traditional the four um first-tier cities are definitely the ones with the highest barrier.
So point-based system is the last thing I want to mention about this new emerging um
regime of citizenship, and mobility as as I call it. Um so in a way it's it's
kind of a global trend, it's quite similar to the sort of point-based systems used in
the global North to
govern and filter international migrants. But on the other hand, I also think this is
um a continuation of a long-standing tradition in Socialist China, that is
this belief in the power of quantification,
a continuation of the rationality of scientific managerialism. So numbers considered
objective and scientific, and you can see that in the social credit system
too.
I won't go through these points in any details, but
just to have an idea how sort of difficult to um
get Hukou in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, even though it's very easy to get it in cities
like Xi'an. And there's a if you'll speak Mandarin, there's an episode from "gu shi FM"
called "I could give up everything for anything for Beijing Hukou".
Um it's quite it's worth a listen if you're interested in this kind of personal stories,
and here is the point-based system for school admission in Shenzhen
in one of the districts in Shenzhen. And then you can see it's really a combination of different
factors. If you have a local Hukou but your parents live in rented houses, you actually get
lower score than if you don't have a local Hukou and your parents own property in the school
catchment area. So this brings me to the last points about the Hukou section. In the Hukou
section, that is it's not everything. So sometimes sometimes there's a mystification of vocal in the
study of internal migration in China, there are apparently a huge number of papers, articles,
studies on this, but it's become increasingly clear that it doesn't matter in lots of places,
it doesn't really matter in much smaller cities, non-provincial capitals, and county level towns
like my hometown. But it does matter very much in places like Beijing and Shanghai,
and those are the places where you have the most selective restrictive policies. Um
so it really depends on the internal the power positioning of cities within the country.
And um if you consider the intention of rural to urban migrant workers to get local urban Hukou,
as I said, only a minority haven't had the intention to get it. But
of course it it depends on your perspective
um or how you would interpret it because sometimes it's like, it's so impossible that they won't even
consider it. Um but still those living in the first tier cities are most likely to say yes.
Um and the top reasons for no are high living costs fear so for first tier cities the most
the biggest reason is high living costs. And um in smaller cities, you have fear of losing rural
land rights, and also no stable employment, because the job is sort of temporary anyway.
And as I said earlier it's not the single determining factor of job and social security.
So next is the content, um the depth or not the content. the depth of citizenship right.
Um the kind of qualities you associate with um ideal citizenry,
um and that is the really complex suzhi discourse. I'm using your super scientific graph from google
and gram here. Um as you can see, it's a discourse that really emerged since the 1980s. And I have
no idea what happened here, but this is the end of the um the turn of the 20th century
around 1900, so I'm sure it means something different a hundred years ago.
But for now it is this policy and everyday discourse that has become completely naturalized.
And it has been used to describe, explain, and justify difference in the hierarchy.
What it exactly means is extremely diverse - it could range from mannerism, self-discipline,
lifestyles, hygiene, education to professional skills, and entrepreneurialism.
And the newer new type urbanization plan issued by the central government um
says that the main points, the goal of
the new type organization is about um urbanization of the people, and raising the suzhi of the
population. Of course this is like mentioning a lot of other policy documents as well.
So um I'm at the beginning of this,
little sub sub uh project.
The point I'd like to make here is that um
as a marker of difference, and hierarchy between morality or urbanity, uncivilized versus civilized
subject versus citizen - the connotation of the term is really context dependent,
and there's also evolving. So earlier depiction of so-called low-suzhi migrant workers really
focused on their rural bodily habitus as Yan Hairong said in
an earlier article about suzhi - so taking showers, brush teeth,
um stop fighting, and not to squat on chairs, something like that.
And current discussion of suzhi in the context of new type urbanization focuses more on
qualities such as education, culture, professional skills, self-governance, and improvement, and
knowledge of laws, and rules, and so on. This is a preliminary um impression from looking through
a quick glance at this comprehensive economic academic knowledge production on
how to increase the suzhi rural to urban migrants and facilitate their integration into cities.
So I think next I'm going to like take a closer look, and have a proper
content analysis of this um of this knowledge of expertise.
And um importantly, it has been internalized by disadvantaged groups to rationalize inequalities
and injustice. So this is a podcast made by um made four migrant workers, and they have guests,
um they have migrant workers as guests. And one of the recent ones is um a labor organizer
delivery worker. And the bad news I think he's been arrested recently.
So he's a delivery worker, and he he has a he has a mutual support group
um and he's a great guy. But what's also struck me from that interview is when the host asked him,
because he said it's it's difficult for us to unite, and it's difficult to have solidarity among
delivery workers in the gig economy. And the host said why do you think is that.
You know I thought he would say because of the nature of the job right, because you are not
like typical industrial workers, and so on. But he said because most people have very low suzhi.
He's like um because you know delivery workers - they have they have really low suzhi. So um
I think that's quite an extraordinary example of how it's it's been internalized by disadvantaged
groups to um rationalize their the kind of inequalities, and injustice they experience.
And because I do study international relations, um what interests me too is also how it's used
to produce imaginaries of global hierarchies. Um the typical narrative about this would be the low
suzhi Chinese people. Um there's a self-oriented orientalizing aspect to it, and the high suzhi
of Japanese um and typically westerners. And I just came across this. Is that a time reminder?
Did you did anyone give me a time reminder? I just sent the link to the da gong tan.
Yeah okay okay so uh a recent speech made by Xi - He was I think it's really interesting. He
says that the younger generations can now look at the world as equals, and no longer
as you know inferior um to the westerners. And they are no longer as "tu" as we were.
Um so this this binary of "tu" and "yang" is also quite interesting which I have written on twitter,
through a twitter thread. But of course it is not uh here is not the time to talk about this.
But it's just how the the suzhi is part of this imagination about global hierarchies um that's
very much situated in the broader um linear and evolutionary and dichotomous discourse
of modernization. And also in Shanshan Lan's study on the black threat discourse in China.
So she identified these these five themes including low suzhi, so how um
these anti-black racist discourse um used the the suzhi discourse to dehumanize, or racialize
Africans in China. But also she made points that I find quite interesting is that um when
you when you ask people who actually interact with um black Africans in China, they would,
when they comment on their language skills, they would say, well they're actually quite high suzhi
because they they speak good English. Um and then that reminds me of um how some some friends of
mine worked in on ethnic minorities, and they told me that speaking mandarin would be considered a
characteristic of high suzhi in minority areas. So these instances I think show that the changing
context dependent understanding, and discourse of suzhi is reflect both reflective,
and constitutive of the global, and national linguistic as well as cultural hegemony.
So finally
I want to connect this to
um the social credit system which has been very very under uh misunderstood. Um but
I won't spend much time explaining what social credit system is, because that's just too much.
Um so I just mentioned this aspects of the SCS, regarding the disciplining of
individual behaviors, through scoring systems, but these scoring systems
are very very few. They exist only in a couple of dozen cities, and they're not mandatory
but I talked to the civil servants in those cities where they do have the scoring system.
And they use a scoring system to sort of encourage certain behaviors,
and punish, but not really punish - um discourage certain other behaviors.
And of course they use the language of suzhi. Um and they connect this also to things like
legal consciousness, um compliance the sort of awareness to comply with contracts and so on.
I think it's quite similar to um the construction of the meaning of suzhi in
the contemporary context. So it's no longer, it's not so much connected to
the bodily habitus anymore. But more to this sort of being competitive and rules abiding
on the market, and also in society with regard to the social credit narratives. I um
interpret this as combining different elements of liberal socialist and
very ambiguous traditional subjectivities. Um so that's what the um the kind of subjectivity
they tried to construct through this concept of trusted worthiness. On the liberal side,
it's about the so-called modern contractual spirits. It's actually used in the Shanghai um
municipal regulation on on social credit - um the compliance with laws and contracts.
And then certain socialist elements that has to do with voluntarism in a community service,
sacrifice that kind of things, um devotion. And then in the traditional areas,
is very vague. It's just mentioned like mentioned that trustworthiness is the traditional virtual.
But when it comes to what they get what that exactly what that exactly means,
it's really ambiguous. So anyhow I think what's crucial about Hukou is that not about hukou, the
suzhi discourse is that on the one hand, it really revises existing social boundaries and difference,
but on the other hand, it also promises the endless possibility for improvements. So Hindess
suggested that um the concept blurs the nature versus nurture divide.
And raising suzhi is both an object of active intervention - a full governance,
and the responsibility of individual citizens, who must strive for becoming a high suzhi person -
who is a competitive market subject, and a rule abiding member of society.
So
you might, you could say that, it's it's sort of connected to, so had it has different um sources
of sort of intellectual, um inspiration. It could say has some elements of Confucian
idea of self cultivation. And to me it also sort of resonates with
um the subjects of improvement in liberal political reason.
So anyhow I think I'm talking to long. Thank you very much for your attention,
and that's all from me.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Um so we will um. We'll take questions now. We have uh we have uh
about half an hour left for discussion. So if you wouldn't mind um using the raised hand function,
then I can go ahead, and call people in order. So open up for questions or comments.
Yeah we have a question from Angela. Hi um first of all, thank you for your talk.
You mentioned um sort of uh, I used you kind of went beyond the Hukou myth. And um
you um talked about how there isn't a single determining factor of um a job in social
security for these migrants. Could you mention what some of the other more significant factors
might be then? Because I guess like from what I've learned in previous classes, and read it
really is the sort of Hukou system that ties you to the social services you're able to access.
So answer now. Sure. I think the most important factor is your type of job.
So you said these migrants, but you know migrants are migrants are not limited to migrants in
temporary low-income jobs right? There are also migrants from Beijing to Shenzhen. As we we have
seen in that um point based systems used by um Shenzhen public schools. So if you um own property
there, even if you don't have Shenzhen Hukou, you still have a higher score. So you could be
it could be an urban to urban migrant. You could have a very good job that provides you with job
security, and so on. So what we are when we of course in this talk, we are looking at the kind
of migrant workers who often and hired by um outsourced like human, and how do you call it,
those agencies like not not hired by companies that would provide them with um social security.
But from the some some of the stories I've read and documentary I've seen, there are also migrant
workers who don't want to have that kind of jobs because they know they're going to be
permanently temporary. They're going to move from city to city, factory to factory.
And if you have to pay for social security contributions, then they are getting less,
and you won't be eligible um for getting the benefits from those social security systems
anyway, because you won't be here anymore. So I think it really depends on the type of employment.
Great, thank you. Other questions.
Yeah Mimi. Hi um thank you so much for coming to talk with us. My question is if you think
that there's a connection, um I know you're talking about um how some people in like
uh the podcast that you mentioned were seeming to like internalize their
suzhi status. And I was wondering if you think that there's a connection
with that other study that you mentioned that people aren't interested in changing
their Hukou status. Or if those are sort of different different phenomena.
Like I kind of think it's it's different. It's two different problems. So the reluctance to change
goes that status has a lot of um contributing factors right. Such as um like the impossibility
of getting um a house for example in the city. The living costs is a huge concern,
and also land has to do with uh the fear of losing land rule, land rights, and some other factors.
But these people if you ask them, if you want to become a higher suzhi person, they
I think they would have no problem. So it's um it's not about being
being um belonging to um the social class um they are confined to.
I think they, I don't know I think I'm
I'm losing my thoughts, but basically I think these are two problems, and um
the thing about who about suzhi is really that it promises improvement. It's not inherent.
So it always asks you is the government or is if I use recording terms again. It's governing
the self. So it's about asking you to constantly improve yourself, and it's possible. So you should
educate yourself, you should try to raise your own your own suzhi, and become a higher suzhi person.
I personally really appreciate the the idea of suzhi as as sort of self-improvement. And
it's a very difficult term to translate to English. But I think that that notion
really kind of resonates particularly with this American idea of constant self-improvement,
and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and stuff. There's a lot of I think kind of
cultural resonance uh there, even if even if the terms are still somewhat different.
So Lee has a question. Hi thank you so much for coming to speak with us, I found this topic
really interesting. Um I had two questions that came about from your talk. The first one related
um pretty closely to Mimi's. And I might be conceptualizing this more in like a western
framework almost, like we were just talking about. But would you say that suzhi is like a predictor
of being able to gain Hukou? Because you may have access to like like a higher class of like
professionalism which would be associated with like like different like different mannerisms,
and stuff like that. I'm not sure if that's a far stretch um of the concepts. And then
my second question was I know the reform efforts were kind of intended to like promote the rights
of the migrant workers. But also seemed to mostly benefit you know the cities. So do you think that
um like migrants were actually made better off by these reform efforts?
um
On the second question, I'm not sure. I don't I don't think I'd answer this,
because Hukou policies, and also social policies differ greatly from city to city, province to
province. Um so I think you really need a lot of on-the-ground study um interviews, and so on to
find out if anyone is actually benefiting from this. Um but on the first question,
yes so the government, and the academics are making this connection. That is
we should make the city suitable. We should make it easier for high suzhi people to settle
in the city, so that's the rationale um if you are a well-educated, and if you are talented,
and if you have good professional skills, then you should be offered an opportunity in the city.
So that's really um and also the academic the academic um discourse is about
we should raise the suzhi of migrant workers. So that they could better integrate into the city.
And I'm not saying that this this is natural. I think this is constructed,
and it's sort of producing new kind of boundaries right. So before it is that you can't come but,
and now it's like yeah you can come when you have improved yourself, when when you have become
a more deserving member of society, and a more deserving competitive market actor.
So um I think this is the rationality the rationality behind
this discourse about the connection between suzhi and rural to urban migration.
Pretty good, uh we have a question from Guangzhi. Hi um can you hear me? Okay I
have a question um regarding the surgery discourse. I was wondering if you saw any
difference in terms of suzhi requirement for rural migrants versus urban residents
in, and acknowledged you know classic national pastime, she talked about how the suzhi discourse,
on the nature of it how it's related to global capitalism production, and how it produces
um docile workers right. But I was wondering also if you saw how the requirement for suzhi
is different for urban residents, and how it's probably more related to how maybe cities serve as
the economy the global the global um creative economy right now. Right um, so how requirements
for for them um are different from those for rural residents or rural immigrants.
Um.
So the question is about what do we mean by suzhi when we talk about different
groups of people right? Yes like a rural, um yeah it's definitely different and so,
as I was saying it's it's very context dependent, um and constantly evolving.
So in the end, I don't really know what. We use it like it's so naturalized it's like an
everyday very everyday vocabulary um, and we use it to describe difference and and sort of justify
hierarchy. But in the end what it exactly means is really ambiguous to me. Um but I think the
several points I've made earlier, or maybe at the heart of it that is being competitive
um on the market, on the job market. And that would have to do with educational attainment,
and sort of professional skills, and so on. Um and then, in the context of
I think this is somehow related to um the idea of trustworthiness in the social credit system. So
the goal is the same, it's about creating these um subjects that comply to contracts and laws,
so still it's very much has to do with um with being an ideal market actor. Um
so yeah that's that's that's that's my thoughts.
But still, I mean I don't have a satisfactory answer for that one.
Great uh next question is from Jewell.
I'm (unintelligible), thank you for your yeah speaking. I think the lives of the workers from
rural areas are more difficult now, well cursor who came yeah 10 years ago over 10 yeah 20 years
ago had better lives than now. Over the past few decades yeah house prices in the first line cities
have risen dramatically, so uh I when I was in when I when I worked in Guangzhou,
uh there are lots of rural yeah employed you know from yeah countryside. But they they said
yeah the the the room prices in the Guangzhou is very very high, so they cannot yeah live any more.
Yeah yeah first line. So what do you think about this problem yeah, Chenchen. Um the problem
housing prices rising? Yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah so it's more difficult for a rural employee.
Yeah it's very difficult to live in. I mean it's I think it's it's always been
um difficult, and it's worsened. Um but for so in my recent studies they call them first generation,
second generation, migrant workers as well. But actually from what I've read
um I think you said the first generation had a better living, life quality relatively speaking,
but from the literature I've read is that the second, the younger generation are more willing
to settle in the city. Even though they might have to bear even higher living costs. Um but the
they are younger, and they sort of came to the city at a younger age,
and feel more integrated in the city life, and so on.
But then of course feeding these huge obstacles, both institutional ones and economic ones.
Okay okay uh next up we have Vicky. Hey um I had a quick question about the Hukou system.
So it seems as if it's a pretty controversial system to me, and it's led to all the reforms that
you talked about. I was wondering what the Chinese government's justification for the system is,
how they justify the continuing continued use of it, even though it seems like a lot of
people have issues with it, and it seems like its primary use is to exploit these migrant workers.
You know most of the time they don't have to justify what they do,
right? Um but I showed you this very early justification from the 1950s, so as with anything,
they could always say it's about restricting personal freedoms for the greater good. Um and now
so there have been debates, I mean especially from certain academics, um from certain activists,
um cause to abolish the system completely.
And I think the government has been responding to this through
one thing making it more open, so opening up especially at smaller at the level of smaller
cities, and then also secondly by saying that we should sort of disconnect to some degree,
disconnect social rights, access to social rights from local status. So promote equal access to
public services through "ju zhu zheng" the residence permit instead of Hukou.
So through this sort of, so whether it has a major impact
is another matter, and we need to investigate that,
but from the from the perspective policy discourse is a sort of response right? So even though we're
not gonna abolish this anytime soon, but we are making it less relevant. We are making it less an
obstacle for you to access social rights. Um and and I think it also in as I said in smaller cities
is quite irrelevant, but in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, it will always be,
there will always be obstacles even if there's no Hukou, there be other means.
So it's really about I think this um hierarchy between cities as well.
Great uh Neil.
Thanks for your talk. I found this all really interesting, and one thing that was uh especially,
I was curious about is the way you mentioned the um what that the delivery work organizer
said on the podcast about suzhi. Uh because that that made me wonder like, do you think there's
there's an implied relationship in that statement also between suzhi and and class consciousness,
such that there's like such there's so much ambiguity in the term, that suzhi could be
wheeled in kind of the opposite direction as well, so you need a certain level of like suzhi in order
to understand your class position, and like because it's so vague that people could use it
to argue for and against or kind of like take a Marxist position, or take the state's position.
Yeah I think that's that's an excellent point. I mean I would need to you would need to talk
to him, to know exactly what he means by that, and this is probably difficult right
now to talk to him because he's disappeared. But in that podcast um from my understanding
so basically he was saying, from some of some of the other discussions, he was saying that most um
deliberate workers are selfish, so they would care more about their pay so obviously uh instead of
organizing themselves, and and doing something together, taking some actions, right? So
um it's almost like an excuse,
to sort of um you know finding explanations um for the behavior or the preferences
of people who have very little choices in those situations. But in a way I think it does,
it does connect to class consciousness even if he was not thinking, he was not aware of it,
like subconsciously, he might be making a connection between suzhi and class consciousness.
But but the the key ideas that really um the ambiguity affairs.
Excellent so uh next up is Fletcher, and then I'm gonna put myself on the list.
So yeah thank you for your talk. Um one thing I'm wondering about suzhi is like
it really reminds me of like american discourses of kind of like poor blaming, and like you know
self-improvement as as you know like poor people should lift themselves up, and and so on.
Um and I know at least in the U.S. like there are a good number of people,
I think who kind of just reject that uh that framing altogether, and I'm wondering
uh who in China plays that role if anyone of of kind of rejecting the whole idea of suzhi at all?
So in the U.S., you said what what are the actors behind the promotion of this idea?
Yeah I mean I guess I'm not even exactly sure I guess I would say like
politically left leaning people would generally tend to kind of reject the the idea of of um
like poor people just need to lift themselves up, um so I guess I wonder if there's a similar
kind of counter discourse against suzhi, in the same way that there is at least some
level of counter discourse against kind of other poor blaming narratives in the U.S..
First of all in response to your first to the question how you framed it at the beginning who is
participating in in this everyone is participating in this, because everyone is using it.
And in the everyday conversations, even though they don't necessarily mean the same thing,
but this as I said it's completely naturalized. And it's naturalized too too easy to discuss
differences within the nation, but also between nations, between different
peoples right especially like Japanese people and German people known as having a very high
suzhi. Um and as for counter discord, I think it's really difficult to see in some academic circles,
and not even in not even in Chinese language academic circles, but mainly in the in the
English language um academic literature. there's a counter there's there's efforts that we made
to deconstruct this right. But in in the um so on social media for example where I'm
like kind of familiar with, um there are counter discourses to poor blaming.
But they would not necessarily frame it as something as a critique of the idea of suzhi. Um
and also I mean if I have to make a really big generalization, but I have you have to be careful
about this, but um I think with the modernization the mainstream modernization discourse in China,
sort of social Darwinism is really quite prevalent.
And if you read my articles about the uh right-wing nationalist discourse,
and a little little article about the white left, you see uh what I mean by that, so believing
in computation, believing social Darwinism must also believe in um this
this cruel um um cruelest competition between the backwards, and the more advanced people.
Because I remember this in from my sort of national patriotic education is that the
lesson you learn, a crucial lesson you learn from history is that if you are
backwards, then you are meant to be beaten or defeated. So this is like even though
they teach you this at in the history lesson just to show you that okay China now really needs to
become, and become an advanced um nation, so that she won't be uh um bullied anymore,
and something like that. But this logic is is very um much naturalized, and um
rooted in sort of popular thinking um.
I may be generalizing too much here, but I think that sort of social Darwinist thinking
and should have something to do with the lack of counter discourse um on this matter.
Thanks so that actually the the question of the right wing response uh connects to the question
that I wanted to ask, so I really appreciate um the the comparative uh perspective you have
in that 2018 article in terms of thinking about the construction, the historical process of the
construction of national citizenship, and how this was something that happened in England,
in the United States, and other places. Um and and thinking and as you just mentioned in the talk,
the kind of combination of bottom-up agitation for the construction of
national citizenship, and then sort of top-down responses. So you know we understand
the sort of where the push for greater Hukou liberalization is coming from, and more sort of
integration of people into cities, and into social services. You know but at the same time, we do
have to acknowledge that there is a lot of um social resistance, that this is not just like the
big bad Chinese government um keeping people out, that that urban residents themselves have a lot
of concerns about that, and that there have been sort of moments of counter mobilization. I mean
in like I think it was Suzhou, a couple years ago, they had this sort of they were gonna reform the
university entrance exam, and you know parents were out on the street protesting, saying no.
So you know so so the question is basically how how big an issue do you think that that kind of
popular resistance within those post-elite cities um is for a more generalized Hukou liberalization?
That's worrying, and I don't I'm not too familiar with that kind of nativism in cities. I do know
in some cities um like in Shanghai as well. So when I think there was a sort of um attack from
an unemployed migrant person, um he attacked uh kindergarten, and killed a couple um kids,
and at the time, it really um triggered a huge backlash against um um non-local people. So
like in they have a slang term in Shanghainese especially for uh non-local people in the city.
And it was there was quite a a surge in um exclusionary nativism in that period. Um
but I can't like assess how large that force
is in other cities, or even in Shanghai cuisine. It's it seems episodic, um but
what I also find interesting is its connection between perception of the Hukou system, and um
xenophobia against the foreigners. Um it's it's all connected in a way, you know xenophobia in
um western countries or right wing populism in western countries is also
related to your perception of your marginalization in society right? Even though that perception
isn't always true. But for example um last year when China introduced this draft regulation on
permanent residence for foreigners. There was also a huge backlash online against um
you know giving foreigners any rights. it's a bit like that. And then when you look at
those those responses, quite a lot of them were about you know, we are not even
equal citizens in our country. We can't even get those rights, then why do you
give foreigners those rights? Um so in a way I think the perception of this internal
inequality really also also has an effect on anti-immigration sentiments.
Yeah great okay uh we're almost out of time, so uh Angela if you have one final quick question.
Yeah so I had a question um sort of tangential question to your response to Fletcher's comment.
Are these ideas of social Darwinism in China
like primarily imported from the west recently, or do they also
develop organically from um inside China? Since suzhi is like is originally a Chinese concept.
So I would trace this back to um kind of reformist or enlightenment thinkers at the
end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th century. So there were quite similar
to those in Japan um around the same time as well so they were seeing that this huge
existential threat from western imperial powers. And they were determined that we have
to get strong, and if we don't get strong, we're going to be um to become extinct.
And also there were lots of um so it was around
that time a lot of vocabulary of social Darwinism were introduced in to Chinese. So
is it is it imported from the what, I would say yes, but also I mean sort of a global circulation
of ideas. So there's this this understanding of of colonialism, and acceptance of logic effect.
Um and then they continued to um shape um popular thinking throughout throughout the 20th century,
I would say. So
it's definitely grown out of the encounter with western colonialism at the end of the
19th century. But I mean, I wouldn't say it's like like completely a foreign idea,
because it's foreign versus indigenous um binaries, is also a little problematic, so
after it got introduced then, it also got sort of reinterpreted and or internalized.
Okay guys uh we're a little bit over time. Um so once again thanks to Professor Zhang
for uh joining us today, and um hope to see all of you guys at the next CCCI lecture
in a few weeks. All right have a good day, thank you!