Modern China

It is widely believed that household registration (hukou) continues to play a fundamental role in determining migrant workers’ life chances in contemporary China. This article contends, on the contrary, that the importance of hukou has declined substantially, and that migrant workers’ life chances would not be significantly improved even if China were to abolish the hukou system. Based on an investigation of migrant workers in Beijing and Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia, the author shows that in addition to hukou, two other mechanisms—social exclusion and the market—also limit migrant workers’ life chances. Moreover, it is not hukou but social exclusion and market resources that most concern the majority of migrant workers when they strive to find a better job, move up the social ladder, and secure opportunities to settle in the city.

This article analyzes the sources of inspiration of the Beijing-based Yidan xuetang, a nonprofit association engaged in the promotion of self-cultivation teachings based on traditional culture and Confucianism, and its relation to religion and politics. It discusses the difficulty of characterizing its activities according to prevailing categories and proposes to define it as a jiaohua (transformation of the self and others through teaching) organization, a category with potential relevance beyond this specific case.

In November 2008, the Politburo issued a new justice system reform plan that it hailed as emblematic of China’s new approach to harmonious society building. This reform plan is an exemplar of how politics works in the Hu Jintao era. It represents an attempt—using ideology, party leadership, and “politicking”—to change the way both social and organizational problems are handled. Looking at one facet of justice administration—criminal justice— reveals how these three political aspects intertwine to produce a path to reform that relies on a strong authoritarian hand. A new emphasis on balance, heralded as a key to the reform, provides a way of navigating the problem of how to achieve social stability in China within the broad state objective of building a harmonious society. The approach in the 2008 plan uses the discourse of harmonious society to attempt to maneuver out of some longstanding stalemates in both institutional management and the punitive culture of justice administration. This new reform path has less to do with creating the conditions for judicial independence and more to do with generating the conditions for greater uniformity in judicial practice across the nation.