Description
One of the most salient features of the Chinese state is the physical mobility of its population and management of the urban population by means including but not limited to official policy. Existing studies tend to picture such physical mobility as being motivated by the migrants’ desire for social mobility through residence in urban as opposed to rural spaces. As often referred to in policy documents issued by state organs at different levels since 2011, disparities in life opportunity along rural-urban lines constitute the driving force for migration within national borders. Focusing upon provisions for public service entitlements enjoyed by the migrant population connected to the ongoing “citizen-making” campaign, this paper examines the visions of equality in these policy documents. In so doing, the apparent uniformity of official stance towards population management melts away to reveal contrasting casting of new urban citizens’ rights and obligations and of political participation. Despite the rhetoric of equalization in recent policies, and the seemingly disparate visions of equality found in policies, conferred urban citizenship operates as class does in distinguishing some segments of the populace from others. Further from the analysis of policy discourse, citizenship can be seen to serve the function of detracting attention from differences in entitlements across urban jurisdictions. In the remainder of the paper, potential implications of citizenship as class differentiator rather than playing-field leveler are considered so that regionalism, state-society relations and globalization can be regarded anew together with the limited effects of physical mobility upon social mobility.| Period | 2019 |
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| Event title | Asia in Motion: Asia on the Rise? |
| Event type | Conference |