Alex K Chen, Geog 505, Topic 9

Alex K Chen, Geog 505, Topic 9

China was primarily an agricultural nation up until the 2000s, when the urban population finally caught up to the rural population. During Mao’s era, the CCP created the hukou system, which effectively curbed migration from rural to urban areas. During this era, rural hukou were unrewarded for their foods, and due to failures in the planning system, famines would sometimes erupt. Nonetheless, while support to rural hukou was very low, they had access to some free education and health care – health care through the barefoot doctors. Life expectancy and literacy rates increased through the Mao era. With the new reforms of 1978, rural hukou had new opportunities to make profits. But the reforms also put them at the discretion of local governments if they didn’t migrate, and a city without social support if they did migrate.

The 1980s brought about new political and economic systems - the cadre evaluation system – which set up criteria for the promotions of local governmental officials, and the rise of rural township enterprises. The cadres were rewarded heavily on GDP growth, which initially spurred the growth of rural township enterprises, which were a means for rural hukou to make profits without migrating to cities. But tax reforms in the 1990s made it harder for cadres to benefit from township and rural enterprises and easier to benefit from land arbitrage with minimal compensation for displaced peasants. This displaced many peasants for minimal compensation. Many of these peasants had no choice but to migrate to the cities.

So whilerural hukou could make more money than they used to, there were also fewer incentives to provide healthcare and education to rural hukou. As an example, rural hukou must pay the vast majority of their health care costs. Despite historical inequality, the peasants have been relativelypeaceful. Part of this peacefulness may have come from the hukou system, which has freed China’s cities from the overpopulation and urban decay characteristic of many cities. While self-sustenance was often possible through living on the land, it is often impossible in urban areas unless they have support – either through the government or employment. But limited support from both areas will lead to diminished quality of life.

There are three major groups of power-holders who have incentives to exploit rural hukou – local governments, urban hukou, and industry. While the incentives of industry can be changed through regulations (much like it has been changed in first-world countries), industry has an incentive to exploit rural hukou until a modern legal system has the potential to decrease corruption, improve monitoring, and to fill in loopholes. And as for local governments, it is interesting that they have managed to seize much power for themselves despite their structure being governed from the top down.

In the cities, both groups of hukou are often in direct contact with each other, which often triggers mutual resentment. The rural hukou become unhappy with the unfairness of the system and the self-entitlement of urban hukou, while urban hukouare repulsed by the relative squalor of rural hukou. Not only that, but crime is primarily committed by rural hukou (as crime is often committed by those who have few legal means for supporting themselves), which further alienates the two groups from each other. Even though the CCP is sometimes interested in the welfare of the rural hukou, urban hukoufind it against their self-interest to grant increased rights to rural hukou – after all – rural hukou massively outnumber urban hukou, and a fully meritocratic system would redistribute many urban hukou jobs to rural hukou laborers.As urban hukou still have more political influence than rural hukou, reforms will face implementation obstacles.

China’s future will be marked by increased urbanization, and the consumption of food with higher footprints. This presents a dilemma to China, as China has a very high ratio of people to arable land, and increased urbanization will only further decrease arable land. Of course, China could easily use its trade surplus to become a net importer of food. But it is somewhat reluctant to be so. With displacement and limited support, many rural hukou find little means to make a living – sometimes crime is the only means to do so. And crime tends to produce negative reinforcement loops.

So how can China transform itself to a country with high quality of life?