A woman in China, who goes by the surname Yan, is suing after being denied a job at a hotel in Hangzhou.[1] Why? Yan was not denied the job because she is unqualified but simply because she is from the Henan Province. This form of regional discrimination might confound many, but it is the social norm in China with a history that dates back to the start of industrialization in the mid-twentieth century. When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established, the deprivatization of the agricultural sector and the establishment of the household registration system greatly disadvantaged rural farmers as they received no benefits compared to their urban counterparts. The urban-biased systems and policies put in place by the PRC amplified the differences between rural and urban folks and gave rise to serious regional discrimination in China that continues to prevail today.
As part of the transition to socialism, the People’s Republic of China prioritized industrialization and adopted a planned economy, agricultural collectivization, and various dual institutions under the influence of the Soviet Union. First, the PRC’s goal of industrialization was impeded by food supply issues due to a lagging agricultural sector. To remedy this, the government established a policy that centralized the procurement and distribution of food, which required farmers in rural China to produce crops “based on the quotas as prescribed to them.”[2] Since the government was in control of agricultural production, they socialized it further by instituting agricultural collectivization. This changed privately owned farmland and other agricultural assets into public ownership, causing farmers to lose property rights, economic leverage, and self-sufficiency. Extreme collectivism, in conjunction with natural disasters, drastically crippled output in 1956 and forced many farmers to flee to the city for better economic opportunities.[3]
However, once migrant workers arrived in the city, they faced a new set of policies enabled by the government that made it extremely difficult for them to succeed in urban China. In particular, the household registration system, more commonly known as the hukou system, prevented migrant workers from accessing the same economic opportunities and social benefits as city dwellers, which further exacerbated the rural and urban divide. The hukou system was initially established in 1958 with the intention to control farmers’ migration to cities, which otherwise might have become uncontrollable and disrupted the cities’ industrializing efforts. The system distinguished city people from migrant farmers by issuing them an urban hukou, which formally recognizes them as urban residents. People with an urban hukou had access to social security, children’s education, health care, employment security, public services provided by the municipal governments, and more.[4] On the other hand, migrant workers were granted none of those benefits while they continued working underpaid jobs with long hours and poor conditions. Consequently, the difference in the quality of life, social standing, and wealth distribution between rural and urban dwellers continued to widen. As people with an urban hukou gained social mobility and obtained skilled jobs, rural migrants would work the menial jobs they left behind. This caused urban people to look down upon migrant workers, leading to more discrimination. Thus, the exclusion and neglect of migrant workers in the urban hukou system is a huge contributing factor to rural-urban segregation.
What is interesting about China’s regional discrimination is that it does not target minority groups or people of different social identities like in most countries. Instead, it discriminates against the majority: its rural population. China’s rural population accounts for 68% of the entire population, and it has “long suffered from all kinds of discrimination.”[5] So what has caused this unconventional form of discrimination? First, China failed to update the country’s social, political, and legal systems in accordance with its rapid industrialization and economic growth. This resulted in several loopholes in the system that caused migrant workers to be unprotected: insufficient labor supervision, poor law enforcement, and no employment contracts, which gave rise to many illegal and unauthorized workers.[6] While the lagging social, political, and legal systems might have been a mere oversight, it is also important to analyze the people who were responsible for establishing such systems. In the case of the hukou system, it was most likely implemented by government officials who are native or early inhabitants of the city. The original purpose of the hukou system — to control the influx of rural farmers in cities and help identify city dwellers from rural migrants — was well-intentioned. However, the system quickly became discriminatory as those who qualified for an urban hukou had access to many more rights and privileges while rural migrants were completely excluded from the opportunity of obtaining an urban hukou. To this day, China continues to lack “comprehensive anti-discrimination law[s].”[7] People from other provinces, such as Hubei or Henan, continue to be discriminated against as they are denied employment, housing, and access to services.[8] If the government truly believes that regional discrimination is a fundamental issue, significant reform would have been instituted to correct this matter. However, not much has changed in the last couple of decades, which brings on the suspicion that the people in power want to maintain the distinction between urban and non-urban hukou individuals and perpetuate regional discrimination.
The practice of distinguishing between what’s considered internal and external in Chinese culture is a plausible indirect cause of regional discrimination. In the case of family, there is a clear classification between who is considered an insider and an outsider. Since women in China’s patriarchal society marry out of their birth family, the family from the maternal side of the family is considered an “outsider.” For example, maternal grandparents are called waigong (外公) and waipo (外婆) whereas paternal grandparents are simply referred to as yeye (爷爷) and nainai (奶奶). The usage of the character wai (外), which means “outside” or “external,” amplifies the distinction between internal and external family members. The effects of these exclusionary terms also have real-life implications. For instance, after marrying into the He family, Spring Grass was no longer a member of the Meng family and so all her sacrifices must be in the interest of her husband’s family. When Spring Grass and Rivers Ho made a sizable amount of money, Rivers Ho would send a couple of hundred dollars to his family while he only allowed at most fifty dollars to be given to Spring Grass’s birth family. The binary classification between internal and external always benefits those who are considered to be internal. Likewise, urban folks very well see themselves as city “insiders” and rural migrants as “outsiders.” This attitude towards rural migrants can also be observed in the language used to define them. Rural migrants in urban cities are often referred to as wailai renkou (外来人口), which means “external population,” or wailai dagong renyuan (外来打工人员), which means migrant workers. The repetition of the word wai emphasizes their foreign and external identity, which may prompt urban folks to view rural migrants as a threat. As a defense mechanism, they enforced the hukou system to ensure that they are still recognized as an internal member of the city with access to internal resources that do not belong to those who are “outsiders.” Thus, the division between internal and external is a mindset that is ingrained in Chinese culture, society, and language and may have influenced the amplification of regional discrimination.
The magnitude of regional discrimination extends beyond China as similar sentiments are observed among Chinese immigrants in the United States. When Chinese immigrants from the Fujian province first arrived in New York’s Chinatown, older Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong Province looked down upon Fujianese people as they perceived the new immigrants as uneducated, loud, ignorant, and dirty.[9] Even though Chinese people are typically looped to the same ethnic group in the United States, Chinese people further distinguish themselves based on regional origin. This further proves that the idea of making classifications between internal and external is deeply rooted in Chinese culture.
Therefore, China’s rural and urban divide was instigated by urban-centered policies and systems that severely undermined the mobility of rural farmers and migrants. The difference in treatment between urban and rural dwellers intensified their regional difference and this continues to be the root cause of regional discrimination in China. Although regional discrimination cannot be resolved overnight, education and recognition of the issue can help diminish its practice and hopefully eliminate this form of bias altogether in the future. Just like how there is some progress made towards anti-racial discrimination by people learning about the history of marginalized groups in the United States, people in China, especially those with an urban hukou, can learn about the rural farmers’ contribution to China’s economic growth and their inevitable conditions as migrant workers due to a biased system might help remove some of the contemporary stigma surrounding folks from different non-urban regions. It is difficult to combat discrimination, but it is not impossible. An earnest collective attempt to eliminate it can make a huge impact.
Citations & References
[1] Lekai Liu and Zhou Wei, “Chinese Woman Denied a Job in Case of Provincial Prejudice — and She’s Suing,” Wall Street Journal, lasted modified November 26, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-woman-denied-a-job-in-
case-of-provincial-prejudiceand-shes-suing-11574698024.
[2] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” in Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China, ed. Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009), 43.
[3] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” 49.
[4] Wenran Jiang, “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise,” in Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China, ed. Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009), 22.
[5] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” 32.
[6] Wenran Jiang, “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise,” 24.
[7] “China Must End Discrimination against Hubei Residents and African Migrants in the Context of Containing Pandemic,” Chinese Human Rights Defenders, last modified April 21, 2020, https://www.nchrd.org/2020/04/china
-must-end-discrimination-against-hubei-residents-and-african-migrants-in-the-context-of-containing-pandemic/
[8] ibid
[9] Yingying Zhang, “The Changing of Music Chair: Chinatown Old-timers and the New Fujianese,” University at Albany, last modified August 2, 2003, https://www.albany.edu/cimp/nsfemily.html.