Migrations in China and Europe: reasonable similarities

Speaking at a debate workshop at the CIDOB Foundation, experts from Chinese universities in the phenomenon of migration stressed the importance of migrations between countryside and city in their country, the flows of which have involved some 150 million people. Organised by the Asia Programme of the CIDOB Foundation, the Department of Immigration of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Centre for Rural Studies and International Agriculture (CERAI), the debate workshop brought together experts on the phenomenon of migration in Europe and China who discussed the challenges presented by migration on the two continents. 

The event took place within the framework of the 2nd China-Europe Forum, promoted by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress and which comprised more than 40 subject-based workshops in Europe as well as a meeting between the participants at the plenary sessions held in Brussels on 6-7 October. The experts on migrations in China agreed that the relocated population now formed part of a new social reality that was resulting in the loss of administrative recognition and is marked by the coexistence of two identities that are traditional in China: rural people and urban people. Meanwhile, the experts on migrations in Europe mainly focused their attention on revision of the concept of citizenship, European immigration policies, integration models and management of flows and borders. Chloé Froissart, a specialist in contemporary China, expressed the need to revise the Huko system, an administrative procedure by which inhabitants’ residence is registered in China. Froissart complained that the Huko system is so over-bureaucratic that most of China’s internal immigrants do not apply for a change of residence through the official administrative channels, and thereby become excluded from the official register. The political scientist pointed out that having no certification of residence in the cities to where migrants move prevents them from having access to basic public services such as health and education. 

As a consequence, rural immigrants become second-class citizens in the big cities, and are discriminated against owing to their origins and their administrative illegality. Other subjects analysed by the Chinese experts included immigrant children, the role of women in migrations, the proliferation of NGOs, the role of the educational system and the divergence of interests between the central government and regional governments in China. Joaquín Beltrán, a social anthropologist and an expert on the Chinese diaspora, claimed that migrations between European countries are comparable to migrations within China, given the physical size of the Asian giant compared with the continent of Europe. Beltrán also stressed that “ the absence of the legal-administrative recognition of immigrants, which is common to both societies, represents one of the main sources of discrimination”. There was a general consensus on the idea that Chinese immigration is a stimulating factor in the internationalisation of the economies of welcoming societies. Furthermore, some participants highlighted the heterogeneousness of Chinese immigration, which depends on social class and origins (rural or urban). 

The participants stressed that migration projects differ greatly between each other, a situation that is manifested when migrants settle in Chinese cities, often without having contact between each other in the host cities. Annette Bongardt, an economist and specialist researcher in studies on China, stressed that there is a great variety and number of Chinese immigrants’ associations, some of which are more focused on exterior relations with their country of origin than on the host country. The debate workshop ended with a range of reflections on subjects such as the commercialisation of regularity, the influence of the Huko system on the reproduction of adverse attitudes of Chinese to registration in Spain, the importance of the language and the work of social mediators as integrating instruments for the Chinese community in Europe. 

>> See China-Europa Forum website