Migrant Communities in Large Cities: The Case of Zhejiang Village in Beijing

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Migrant Communities in Large Cities The Case of
Zhejiang Village in Beijing

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• ? ??????????1993, 3 68-74?
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• ???????????1999 (4)
  18-22.

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Introduction

• Every major city in China now has a large migrant
  population a result of massive rural-urban
  migration since the launching of the reforms in
  the early 1980sall major cities in China
•  E.g. Beijing had 1.81 million migrant workers in
  1997 and a total migrant population around 2.26
  million
•  Of this, 910,000 (40) lived in permanent and
  temporary housing rented from former peasants,
  individual citizens of Beijing, and various work
  units

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• The rest reside in dormitories of the work units
  (25) and construction sites and other work sites
  (20), or are domestic workers and live with
  their employers
• Emergence of communities with large
  concentrations of migrant populations
• Generally located in the (former) outskirts of
  the city, i.e., the urban-rural fringe
• Has to do with the segmentation of the housing
  and land markets in urban China In rural areas
  land belongs to the collectives and housing is
  privately owned
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Zhejiang Village

• located in the southeast suburb of Beijing, is
  one of the largest and certainly the best
  documented migrant community in China
• Named after the origin of the migrants. In fact
  almost all migrants in Zhejiang Village came from
  the Wenzhou region, particularly Leqing County
•  Development can be traced back to the Lu
  brothers who used to trade Leqing-manufactured
  clothing in Inner Mongolia in 1983
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Migrant Communities in Beijing
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• Filled a niche arising from the underdevelopment
  of service sector (including the retail industry)
  and the under provision of consumption items in
  the country
• Took advantage of change in policy which allowed
  petty traders from the rural areas to do business
  in major cities and which gave permission to the
  state retail outlets (including the major
  department stores) to rent stalls/ counters
  within their premise to the peasant traders

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History of Development

• Massive immigration from Wenzhou began in
  1986-87.
• The migration population in Zhejiang Village
  reached 30,000 in early 1989
• Beijing municipal government made repeated
  attempts in 1989-90 to drive out the migrant
  population, in anticipation of the Asian Games.
  At one point in time, Zhejiang Village was almost
  empty.

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• Beginning from 1991, the Beijing municipal
  government has adopted a more accommodative
  attitude. Instead of trying to drive out the
  migrants, the overriding concern now is how to
  better manage such migrant communities.
• Development of Zhejiang Village and other migrant
  communities has become much steadier. Migrant
  communities are now generally recognized as a
  permanent feature in major Chinese cities
• Today Zhejiang Village has a population around
  80,000.

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Economy of Zhejiang Village

• Beginning from Day 1, Zhejiang Village has been a
  settlement specializing in clothing (including
  leather products and shoes) manufacturing and
  trading.
• Wenzhou petty traders and manufacturers
  demonstrate immense entrepreneurship
• Securing raw materials from place of origin, such
  as leather from nearby provinces and cloth from
  Guangdong and Suzhou

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• Products sold at a large number of street-corner
  stalls and counters in the major retail shops in
  the city
• Establishing joint-ventures with local retail
  firms including the major state-owned department
  stores in order to evade tax and circumvent
  control by the local authority, and to mitigate
  the brand name effects associated with the
  general inferior quality of their products
• Flexibility in use of resource. E.g., hotel rooms
  for residence used as show rooms, residence used
  as show rooms

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• Reliance on kinship and geo-relationship
  (relationship attributed to same origin) in
  labour recruitment, sharing of information,
  extension of credit, etc. Yet business means
  business when it comes to money and profit
• Securing information about the latest market
  trends (such as the latest fashion) and the
  policy environment through every means. E.g.,
  evening news of the CCTV, fashion shows
  programmes on TV, visits to Shanghai, Guangzhou
  and Shenzhen. The products made in Zhejiang
  Village may be of inferior quality, but they
  certain are the most fashionable in the country.

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Recent Developments in Zhejiang Village

• Setting up large scale wholesale centres in
  Zhejiang Village, targeting not only at the
  Beijing market, but also at the entire North
  China and Northeast, and also Russia and East
  Europe
• New long distance bus depots (and bus service to
  Wenzhou and other places in the country)
• Newly built hotels

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Major Developments in Zhejiang Village
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Land Use Map of Zhejiang Village
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• Establishment of labour recruitment agencies in
  both the host community and in Wenzhou
  formalizing labour recruitment
• Very much like the case of the New York
  Chinatown, Zhejiang Village also serves as the
  hub for the million of Wenzhou migrants in other
  parts of Beijing and even for Wenzhou migrants
  scattered over North China
• Development of Producers services

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Living in the Migrant Communities

• Migrants rent residence from (former) local
  peasants and other owners of residential premises
  (both existing premises and purposely built but
  largely temporary premises) the local people
  benefit mainly as rent seekers
• Migrants set up their own kindergartens and
  schools. In some migrant communities there are
  also clinics run by both local and migrant
  doctors and even rudimentary hospitals

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Living in the Migrant Communities

• Children of the migrants also attend local
  schools, but they have to pay very high fees
• But otherwise, migrants in Zhejiang Village and
  other migrant communities have little direct
  contacts with people in the local community.
  Money earned tends to be remitted back to the
  place of origin.

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Futures of Migrant Communities in Major Chinese
Cities

• The goal of becoming an international metropolis
  Compatibility of prolonged existence of migrant
  communities
• Marketization of land and housing in urban China
  Implications for the special status of the land
  and housing markets in the migrant communities
  (and the urban-rural fringe in general)

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Futures of Migrant Communities in Major Chinese
Cities

• Conflicts over extraction of rent between the
  municipal government and the local village
  authorities
• What special functions can these migrant
  communities continue to serve with the gradual
  maturing of the market economy?