To listen to some official Chinese pronouncements and US
media coverage, one might think that the Chinese hukou (household registration)
system is on the verge of complete dismantlement. Wu Dong, chief of the Bureau for the
Management of Public Order at the Ministry of Public Security announced on
March 8 that Chinese authorities would deepen reform of the hukou system in
2007, according to a March 9 Legal Daily article
reposted on the People’s Daily website. Reforms would aim at replacing temporary residence cards, migrant
marriage documentation, and other controls over the migrant population with a
unified residence permit system. 

Chinese provincial authorities have previously made
announcements regarding the elimination of distinction between
"agricultural" and "non-agricultural" hukou status. Western media has picked up on some of these
pronouncements and characterized them as efforts to “abolish” or “eliminate” the hukou system.

This is wrong. The
Chinese hukou system is not disappearing. But it is mutating.

For starters, take a look at Wu’s own language in the March
8 statement: 

We should adjust our policies on shifting one’s place of
hukou registration, using possession of a legal and fixed place of residence as
the basic criteria for obtaining hukou registration [in an urban area],
allowing those in the migrant population who fulfill this criteria to obtain
hukou registration in their place of ordinary registration, and guiding the
migrant population to merge with the local [urban] society. Model migrant workers, advanced workers and
technicians, and others who have made outstanding contributions, will be
granted preference in obtaining hukou registration [in urban areas].  

This is not a proposal to wipe out the hukou system
entirely. It is a call to gradually
allow those migrants deemed desirable, and who satisfy particular criteria, to
obtain urban hukou registration. This
is, in fact, entirely consistent with the general trend of Chinese hukou
reforms over the past twenty years.

Chinese authorities have regularly pressed policies to grant
urban hukou status to migrant workers who have a "fixed place of living" and a "stable source of income." But local
regulations often define these terms to require ownership of one’s own home or
professional employment. Naturally, this
excludes many low-wage migrants.  

Migrants must obtain local hukou in urban areas to receive
public services and benefits on an equal basis with other urban residents. But since local hukou reforms continue to
apply strict economic and housing criteria to determine migrant eligibility for
obtaining urban hukou status, many continue to suffer from institutional
exclusion. And since hukou status is
inherited, children of low-wage migrants can be born and raised in urban areas,
yet not enjoy the same status as their urban counterparts.

One reason for the confusion in reporting on hukou reform:
outsiders don't understand the system that well. Chinese authorities have indeed moved to
eliminate the distinctions between "agricultural" (nongye) and "non-agricultural"
(fei nongye) hukou registration. In the
pre-reform era, this distinction played a critical role in determining whether
one was eligible for food rations. But with
the advent of private markets for food, that role has largely disappeared. Chinese scholars have noted that these
reforms have progressed relatively smoothly precisely because they "don’t involve
substantive content," as noted in a January
4, 2006 post on the CECC website.

In contrast, the linkage between one’s hukou registration in
a particular city and the ability to enjoy municipal health or education
services on an equal basis with other residents remains alive and well. In 2006, intergovernmental research groups created
by the State Council noted that hukou reform would be difficult to carry out
without comprehensively addressing these issues, according to a January 31 post
on the China Court web
site.

For more details on the above issues, see the topic paper of
the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) on "China's Household
Registration System: Sustained Reform Needed to Protect China’s Rural
Migrants," and Fei-Ling Wang, Organizing through Division and Exclusion:
China's Hukou System (Stanford University Press, 2006).

Other shifts regarding the treatment of migrants are also perhaps less
substantive than they might seem at first glance. A draft resolution before the National
People’s Congress would create delegate quotas for rural migrant workers in
next year’s NPC, according to a March 8 Xinhua article. But it is unclear that this proposal
would necessarily aim at enfranchising ordinary migrant workers to vote for
such delegates, as opposed to merely creating a requirement that municipal
authorities select a certain number of migrants to serve. The article paraphrases one migrant: 

Where migrant workers can vote and be elected remains a
problem, Sun said, as the farmers-turned-workers have no "hukou" or
urban residence registration, which means they do not belong to a precinct in
cities, nor are they willing to return to their rural hometown for an election
because of travel expenses and troubles and the fear of losing jobs.

At least some of the hukou reform efforts appear aimed at
not only improving the livelihood of migrants, but also at increasing the
state’s ability to monitor and control the migrant population. Chen Jiping, head of the leading group on
the management of public order for the migrant population, called for a dual
policy of "service" to and "management" of the migrant population, according to
a press communiqué carried on the CCTV website. Measures to be taken include increasing the
numbers of people involved in managing migrants, creating comprehensive
databases of temporary residents and rental apartments, and strengthening
management of public order by implementing better controls over renters.