Beijing moves to close the urban-rural gap

BEIJING - Beijing has announced more changes to its local "hukou" (permanent residence permit) system: the rural Beijing hukou will cease to exist, ending the divide between rural and urban residents.

The term "city" in China is usually applied to an urban center with a, sometimes vast, rural hinterland, often including farmland, mountains and forests. Even metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai have residents who are considered "rural."

According to the guideline released on Monday, Beijing municipal government will no longer distinguish between urban and rural residents, but establish a unified permit system. Education, health, employment, social welfare, and housing will be equal for all Beijing residents.

Among the 31 provincial regions of Chinese mainland, Beijing is the 30th to announce a plan to terminate its hukou divide. Only Tibet Autonomous Region maintains the distinction.

The reform is set to affect hundreds of millions of Chinese people. By 2015, the mainland urban population -- with or without residence permits -- was 767.5 million, or 55.9 percent of the total, while the population categorized as rural was 606 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Born different

Hukou has a significant bearing on the lives of Chinese citizens. For decades the dualistic structure has meant better services for urban people, while preventing rural people from upping sticks and moving freely into cities to enjoy the good life.

Since the 1950s, where food and other material supplies were limited, China has divided people into urban or rural and used the hukou system to control the population flow and to plan supplies.

As a traditionally agrarian society, at that time most people lived in the countryside and were not allowed to move to cities. They had to support themselves -- and the urban population -- with the yields of their farming. In comparison, those holding urban hukou, mainly people with jobs, were allocated coupons during the planned economy period and were supposed to buy their supplies with a combination of wages and coupons.

Rural people rarely got the chance to move to cities, except by going to university, joining the army, or by finding jobs in state-owned industries.

Zhang Ping, 59, still remembers the admiration of his fellow villagers when he became a railway worker and converted his rural hukou into an urban one in 1976. His family still hold rural hukou in No. 8 Village, Xihongmen Township in Beijing's Daxing District, where the capital city's second international airport will be built.

"Urban hukou meant never needing to toil in the fields again," said Zhang.

For the past half century or so, great disparities have existed and expanded between urban and rural populations in terms of welfare and rights. Urban workers have their medical expenses reimbursed and are granted pensions, but farmers are entitled to no such "luxuries."

Decades later, when simply feeding the country's 1.3 billion people with very limited land resources became a central political issue, farmers with land have felt more privileged and often have little interest in becoming urbanites. Farming has subsidies, and leasing the farmland also makes money.

Zhang's son, Zhang Hongliang, 34, feels lucky to hold a rural hukou. According to a 30-year agreement between his family and the village, they are granted 25,000 yuan (3,700 U.S. dollars) per person per year for leasing their farmland for commercial exploitation. His father, with his urban hukou, receives nothing.

"The land use agreement still has 18 years to run. I don't know if I will still get the money when my rural hukou is revoked," Zhang Junior said.

Living equally

Zhang Yinghong of Beijing's rural economy research center described how limited supply at the time led to the creation urban-rural division.

"The dual hukou system was important in controlling the size of cities during the planned economy period, but as the market economy developed, the system hampered population flow and brought disparities," he said.

Year after year, millions of former farm workers migrate to the cities, but cannot really settle there as their rights to medical, educational and other welfare services apply to their place of origin, often thousands of kilometers away.

Hukou reform will bring social equality and justice by breaking the barriers that defined the divide, said Zhu Lijia of the Chinese Academy of Governance.

By establishing a unified hukou system, public services will be equal for all, urban and rural residents alike, greatly assisting the free flow of labor and urbanization, Zhu said.

As for farmers concerned that they may lose their land rights, Zhu said hukou reform does not mean depriving farmers of their assets. "What they are granted will be equal rights. Their wealth will not be affected," he said.