介绍:
BK: Is there any particular reason why those sizes were chosen, and at the same time, how exactly are there efforts to limit population going to work there, other than just kind of hoping people will go along with the hukous?
Du Peng: The policy try to encourage people to move to central China or western China, not just coastal areas. Not from northeastern parts to Beijing and Shanghai. But the key driver behind that is the job opportunity, the resource allocation. There are more resources in the big cities, megacities. If we can’t change that, it’s not easy to say you just go to the small cities. They need the young people they need job opportunity to develop. That’s the key.
Kam Wing Chan: It’s the job that determine where people go.
ZCG: Recently, as part of the reform plan, migrant workers will be allowed to apply for residence permits. They will now allow access to basic social services. But given the conditions required and the services provided, how would you rate this move?
Du Peng: I would say that’s a good start, but not enough, because it’s only benefit a small part of the population. Maybe about ten percent of that, but for the majority of the ordinary, not the high skills part, still they can’t have a clear path how to merge into the local hukou system.
BK: Under this system, what do you think are going to be the biggest challenges for it to work out as it is hoped to achieve?
Kam Wing Chan: It will depend very much on the local condition. I think some cities may be a little more creative, a little more tolerant, so they may do well. Some cities may turn out, turn this whole thing into really, a very restrictive kind of system, and may not really function as Chinese central government wants to achieve, so you may get a resident permit, but it doesn’t really get you very much.
BK: What do you think of this plan so far? What do you think are the main advantages and disadvantages of a points based plan like the one that’s been described for Beijing?
Kam Wing Chan: I am not too optimistic about how the Beijing system is going to really make a huge change in anything, because it sounds like it’s going to be really restrictive and even more so than in the system that we’ve seen for example in Shanghai.
BK: For those people who are not going to be getting a hukou right away or who won’t even be eligible to get one at all how do you think that these people can be provided with the necessary services that they ought to be getting?
Du Peng: I suggest the effect from social policy, we can come back to the realization, realize the contribution of these migrants. If we don’t have these eight million migrants, what will be the city? And then we think why we should provide social services for them. Because we recognize their contribution, and their children’s development, and that will be part of that. Then maybe you change the mentality. It’s not the trouble you give the city, but it’s part of the city’s development.
ZCG: If one day, let’s say the megacities like Beijing are able to provide all these social services or welfare to the migrant workers, does that mean that is it possible to dismantle the hukou system altogether in big cities?
Kam Wing Chan: If one day, everywhere in China has roughly similar services and so on, people can vote with their feet, just like what happened in the US and in many other countries. People can choose based on their own characteristics, based on their own preferences and based on their own strengths. They can choose whatever city they want to go to, and then you don’t need a hukou system to regulate the population migration.
ZCG: How do you think that their children should be provided with necessary social services like education and healthcare in large cities like Beijing?
Kam Wing Chan: I would definitely argue that they should provide education for those children. In many other medium cities, for example in Suzhou, they are providing a nine-year education for every migrant’s children. I think this is important because children are, ultimately, China’s future. If we want to reform we should also bring in the market, we should not use a points system, because a points system is very static and very difficult and it may not really work.
BK: Outside of using the hukou system to kind of restrict movement or restrict access to services, what are other ways the government might achieve these goals here, of increasing urbanization but not leading to overcrowding?
Du Peng: Personally I think the hukou system will exist but the function will be separated from the current system. Hukou is just for registration, but not attached to so much welfare. So that is the point, if we have more balanced welfare policies between rural and urban areas, or between big megacities and smaller cities, then people will have a more balanced distribution among these areas.
