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• Since its implementation in the 1950s, the Chinese hukou (household registration) system has limited the rights of ordinary Chinese citizens to choose their permanent place of residence, receive equal access to social services, and enjoy equal protection of the law. Economic changes and relaxation of some hukou controls have eroded previously strict limits on citizens' freedom of movement, but these changes have also exported a discriminatory urban-rural social division to China's cities. Migrants who lack a local hukou for their new city of residence face legal discrimination in employment, education, and social services.

• Chinese leaders called for reforms to the hukou system during the past year. Central government interest in reform stems not only from concern over migrant rights and economic inequality, but also from concern over growing social instability and a desire for stronger government control over China's internal migrant population. New national goals for hukou reform, like similar proposals implemented periodically since the late 1990s, call for streamlined hukou categories, elimination of discriminatory regulations on employment, and improved migrant access to social services.

• Local governments and urban residents have resisted reforms to the hukou system because of the potential budgetary impact, fears of increasing population pressure in cities, and discriminatory attitudes toward migrants. Local opposition has limited the ability of central government authorities to achieve national reform goals.

The Hukou System

Since its implementation in the 1950s, the Chinese hukou (household registration) system has limited the rights of ordinary Chinese citizens to choose their permanent place of residence, receive equal access to social services, and enjoy protection of the law. Urban residents received preferential employment opportunities, favorable educational quotas, and old-age pensions. Rural residents did not. Hukou status, and the accompanying right to receive these benefits, is inherited at birth. Only limited methods exist for citizens to change their hukou status.¹ During the late 1970s, the system became so rigid that rural residents risked arrest for entering urban areas. These limits effectively blocked upward mobility for most rural citizens.²

Economic changes and relaxation of some hukou controls have eroded previously strict limits on citizens' freedom of movement,³ but these changes have also exported a discriminatory urban-rural social division to China's cities. Official statistics suggest 120 million rural migrants worked in Chinese cities in 2005, about a quarter of China's total urban population.⁴ Official reforms undertaken since the late 1990s have allowed migrants to obtain hukou in urban areas where they have a "stable source of income" and a "stable place of residence."⁵ Local officials, however, often interpret these terms to exclude low-income rural migrants.⁶ As a result, poor rural migrants may live in Chinese cities for long periods, even from birth, but retain hukou registration inherited from their parents because they are unable to obtain a local hukou in their new city of residence.

Migrants who lack a local hukou for their new city of residence face legal discrimination. They cannot receive social services such as healthcare or schooling for their children on the same basis as other residents.⁷ Local authorities also condition government employment, old-age benefits, and low-interest housing loans on having a local hukou in the city of residence.⁸ The Supreme People's Court issued a judicial interpretation in 2003 regarding compensation for deaths in personal injury cases that mandates a lower rate of compensation for deceased rural hukou holders, even if they have been resident in urban areas for many years.⁹ Representation in local legislative bodies favors urban hukou holders; an individual rural local people's congress deputy represents four times as many citizens as his or her urban counterpart.¹⁰

Chinese laws and regulations that condition citizen legal rights and social services on hereditary hukou status conflict with international human rights standards on non-discrimination and have generated criticism in China. Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees equal protection of the law and non-discrimination based on "national or social origin . . . birth or other status." Article 2(2) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights also prohibits discrimination on the same grounds in fields such as employment, education, health, and social security benefits. In early 2006, Chinese news media carried a series of critical reports on cases of long-term migrants in urban areas who held non-local rural hukou and who were killed in traffic accidents. Families of the deceased received substantially less in compensation than families of residents who held local urban hukou and who were killed in the same or similar accidents.¹¹ The father of one deceased migrant student said, "My daughter had lived in the city for 10 years. She didn't pay less for her school fees because she had [a] rural hukou. Why was her life worth less than half of that of her classmates? " ¹²

Reform Efforts in 2005 and 2006

Chinese leaders called for reforms to the hukou system during the past year. Communist Party scholars and government officials publicly raised the subject of hukou reform in October 2005, after the conclusion of the Party plenum.¹³ The joint opinion issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council in December 2005 made hukou reform part of the Party's "new socialist countryside" campaign on rural reform, and a policy goal for 2006.¹⁴

Central government interest in reform stems not only from concern over migrant rights and economic inequality, but also from concern over growing social instability and a desire for stronger government control over China's internal migrant population. The December joint opinion emphasized the need to protect the "legitimate rights and interests of farmers who seek work."¹⁵ Accompanying press statements noted a large and increasing gap between urban and rural incomes, with the former totaling 3.22 times the latter in 2005.¹⁶ An earlier October 2005 joint Party and State Council opinion on public security and social stability also highlighted the need to better protect migrant rights, but also called for "new techniques to manage China's migrant population."¹⁷ In December 2004, Chen Jiping, Director of the General Office of the Party's Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security, the office that drafted the October joint opinion, called for improving systems used to keep track of temporary residents, including better monitoring of migrant housing rentals.¹⁸

New national goals for hukou reform, like similar proposals implemented periodically since the late 1990s, call for streamlined hukou categories, elimination of discriminatory regulations on employment, and improved migrant access to social services.¹⁹ Public Security Vice Minister Liu Jinguo said in October 2005 that the government was considering elimination of the distinction between "agricultural" and "non-agricultural" hukous nationwide, a reform already adopted in 11 provinces.²⁰ Chinese academics noted that this reform "has not involved substantive content," since it does not affect the requirement that migrants must obtain a hukou in a particular city in order to receive equal access to social services.²¹ Liu also said that Chinese authorities will continue to require a "stable place of residence" to determine which migrants may obtain hukou in larger cities.²²

Both Liu's speech and the December joint opinion also called for elimination of discriminatory regulations that limit the ability of rural migrants to work in urban areas.²³ The State Council issued a similar directive in December 2004.²⁴ Some ministries and local authorities have taken steps to implement these directives. In late 2005, the Ministry of Labor and Social Services (MOLSS) issued a migrant rights handbook that says that MOLSS officials will not require migrants to obtain a work registration card from their place of origin before they seek jobs in urban areas.²⁵ In early 2005, Beijing municipal authorities abolished regulations that prohibited renting apartments to migrants and that allowed labor officials to exclude migrants from certain occupations.²⁶

Finally, central government authorities have called for improving migrant access to urban social services as a national reform goal. Public Security Vice Minister Liu said that local governments should make serious efforts to address migrant housing, education, and healthcare needs.²⁷ The December joint opinion calls for "gradually constructing a social security network for migrants," "exploring the provision of medical insurance for serious illnesses to migrants," and "solving the problem of educating migrant children"²⁸ [see Section IV--Introduction]. Draft amendments to the Law on Compulsory Education would charge local governments with providing equal educational opportunities to the children of migrants.²⁹ The Ministry of Health has announced projects to educate migrant workers about HIV/AIDS, provide occupational healthcare, and vaccinate migrant children against infectious diseases.³⁰

Local governments and urban residents have resisted reforms to the hukou system because of the potential budgetary impact, fears of increasing population pressure in cities, and discriminatory attitudes toward migrants. Ministry of Public Security (MPS) officials said in November 2005 that national hukou reform efforts had encountered resistance from local authorities who would bear responsibility for funding the additional services to migrants.³¹ In the fall of 2005, Shenzhen authorities announced tighter rules for migrants in an effort to control the growth rate of the temporary resident population. The new Shenzhen measures temporarily suspend processing of local hukou applications for the dependent children of current Shenzhen migrant residents, limit the growth of private schools for migrant children, and require migrant parents to pay additional fees to enroll their children in public schools.³² Some urban residents oppose improved treatment for migrants, expressing concern about urban population growth and the influx of poor, less educated migrants. Citizens invited to comment on Beijing's municipal development plans in August 2005 demanded tighter restrictions on rural migrants, including strict hukou policies and strict controls on providing housing and employment to migrants.³³

Local opposition has limited the ability of central government authorities to achieve national reform goals. Lu Hongyan, Deputy Director of the MPS General Office, said that hukou reform "is not entirely within the power or responsibility of the MPS," but that the MPS would attempt to coordinate with local governments and other ministries to present a hukou reform program by late December 2005 or early 2006.³⁴ Neither official sources nor the state-controlled news media have reported the completion of work on such a program. Chen Xiwen, Deputy Director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Finance and Economics, remarked at a press conference accompanying the issuance of the December 2005 joint opinion that the "attached benefits" linked to hukou identification, such as education or healthcare, hinder reform efforts. Chen said that the central government will not press for a single plan for hukou reform, but will instead allow localities to adopt their own reforms.³⁵

Some provincial governments have made efforts to address discrimination against migrants. For example, Henan provincial authorities announced that starting in October 2005 they would include several urban medical facilities in the local rural health cooperative system. The plan allows migrants and rural residents to receive health services at the designated facilities, and forbids health providers from discriminating between urban and non-urban residents in assessing fees.³⁶ In June 2006, the Henan High People's Court (HPC) issued an opinion setting death or injury compensation awards for some rural migrants at the same level as long-term urban residents. The opinion requires that rural migrants have a "regular place of residence in the city" and that their "main source of income be earned in the city."³⁷ The Anhui HPC has issued rules stipulating that injury or death compensation for minors who hold a rural hukou but attend school and live in urban areas shall be computed using the urban standard.³⁸ Other courts and legislative bodies are considering issuing similar directives.³⁹

Other local reforms have been limited, or have reversed previous efforts to relax hukou controls. In January 2006, the Shanghai local people's congress (LPC) for the first time allowed two migrant workers from Jiangsu province to attend a session of the Shanghai LPC as observers. The China Economic Times, a State Council-sponsored publication, criticized the Shanghai LPC, however, for not allowing the two migrants to serve as full representatives. It noted that hukou restrictions bar migrants from standing for election, and that none of the 1,000 LPC delegates attending the session represented Shanghai's 4 million migrant workers.⁴⁰ Shenyang municipal authorities announced in December 2005 that they would resume requiring temporary residence permits for migrants. Authorities had abolished these permits in July 2003, requiring only that migrants sign in with local public security officials upon arrival in the city. Shenyang authorities noted that they reinstated the temporary residence permits to comply with provincial and national guidelines on hukou reform.⁴¹

International Travel

The National People's Congress Standing Committee passed a new Law on Passports in April 2006 that will take effect in January 2007. The law narrows the legal authority of Chinese officials to deny passports to Chinese citizens.⁴² Article 13 of the new law specifies the conditions under which Chinese authorities may deny a citizen's passport application, including document falsification, failure to prove citizenship, pending fulfillment of a criminal sentence or other criminal punishment, or a court order not to leave the country as a result of an ongoing civil case.⁴³ Authorities may also deny a passport application if they determine that the applicant's activities abroad would harm national security or state interests.⁴⁴ This language is narrower than that of the previous 1980 Regulations on Passports and Visas, which set no limits on the government's authority to deny passport applications.⁴⁵ Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides both that "[e]veryone shall be free to leave any country, including his own," and that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country." Chinese authorities have denied passports to Chinese citizens who express views they find objectionable. In May 2006, Chinese authorities refused to issue passports to two Chinese lawyers who applied for permission to travel to the United States to assist a Falun Gong practitioner who faced criminal charges.⁴⁶ Chinese authorities have also prevented Protestant house church leaders from traveling abroad [see Section V(d)--Freedom of Religion--Religious Freedom for China's Protestants]. Yang Jianli, a Chinese citizen and democracy activist, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in China on charges of illegal entry and espionage after entering the country on another person's passport. Throughout the 1990s, Yang was unable to secure a passport from Chinese consular officials in the United States.⁴⁷ The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found his detention to be arbitrary.⁴⁸