Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sexuality in the People's Republic of China

Sexuality in the People's Republic of China has undergone revolutionary changes and this "sexual revolution" still continues today. sexual attitudes, behaviors, ideology, and relations have changed dramatically in the past decade of reform and opening up of the country. Sex is increasingly considered something personal and can now be differentiated from a traditional system that featured legalized marital sex and legal controls over childbirth. The reduction in controls on sexual behavior has initiated a freer atmosphere for sexual expression. More and more people now regard sexual rights as basic human rights, so that everyone has the right and freedom to pursue his or her own sexual bliss.

Change in the field of reveals not only a change of sexual attitudes and behaviors but also a series of related social changes via the process of social transformation. From the sociological perspective, there have been several main factors that have created the current turning point in the contemporary Chinese social context.

Contemporary history


Since the early 1980s sex and sexuality have become prominent themes of public debate in China, after three decades during which discourses on sexuality were subject to stringent ideological controls.

The market reform and opening-up policy


China’s reform and opening-up policy has caused a series of great changes in Chinese society. The denial of the ideals of the Cultural Revolution, during which sex was used as a political tool for the control of the people, is an influential factor in making these changes.

Reforms in the area of sexuality show a lessening amount of government control over the individual private life. Many sex-related problems and personal lifestyles are no longer relegated to the field of politics and thus exempt from severe legal punishment or moral condemnation. Sex has been returned to the personal sphere under the domain of self-management. These changes can be seen in the weakened interference and control of the government in sex-related areas, strengthened sexual resources in the open market, a diversity of sexual lifestyles, and a strong appeal for sexual rights as human rights.

For instance, the government’s control of personal lives has gradually retreated since the passing of the new marriage registration principles in October 2003, which again simplified the processes of marriage and divorce. The committed parties no longer need certification or confirmation from their place of work or the local Resident Committee to get married or divorced. The pre-marital physical, which among other things once contained an indication of the woman’s virginity, is no longer obligatory. The new principles reflect a greater respect for human rights, a protection of marital freedom, and a change in the governmental function with regards to sexual issues.

At the same time, some major social policies have also played an important part. For example, the side effect of the family planning policy is to promote a separation of sexual behavior from purposes. If a couple can give birth to one child only, sexual behavior is no longer solely practiced to produce babies but also for pleasure. Changes in the legal code have reflected this while also publicly acknowledging sex as a pursuit of happiness.

Stable economic development and consumerism


Under recent policies, the social economy has seen stable and sustainable growth, especially in big cities. Material wealth and an increase in quality of life have brought optimism and consumerism which continually send messages to the individual that it is acceptable to seek sexual happiness.

Popularization of higher education




Popularization of higher education has become one of the major changes in Chinese education. According to recent statistics publicized by the Shanghai Education Commission, the gross entrance rate into higher education in Shanghai is 55 percent, ranking first in the country. Beijing comes a close second, at 53 percent. In the same year, the nation’s gross entrance rate into higher education has not yet reached 19 percent. More than half of the population aged 18 to 22 in Shanghai and Beijing can get access to some form of higher education. At present, only a few countries, such as Canada, the United States, Finland, South Korea, and Australia, have achieved such levels of higher education.

The impact of higher education has been significant. The younger generation may adopt a different sexual ideology from the older generation because they have more opportunities to access the human and social sciences. The government sponsored the conference and then signed the UN documents pledging gender equality, and official women’s organizations and feminist activists and scholars have been fighting against gender discrimination and working on achieving gender equality. Their struggle has permeated many aspects of the people’s social lives.

Mainstream feminist discourse in China tends to ignore sexuality issues, considering those topics either unimportant or as stirring up unnecessary trouble. Nevertheless, the critical thinking of feminist discourse has challenged stereotyped gender roles, including sexuality roles. The latter especially has influenced many young people. Such an increase in concern can be a double-edged sword for the sexual revolution in China. It provides both opportunities and risks. Sexuality has to be openly discussed because of AIDS concerns. For example, in the summer of 2005, China Central Television discussed the topic of AIDS under the title "Homosexuality: Confronting is Better than Evading." Scholars and activists have gained the legitimacy to talk publicly about the so-called "high risk" groups such as gay men and sex workers and have been developing strategies to work together with the government, replacing strategies of attacking the "evil" with models for caring for those at risk.

Sexuality, including homosexuality, has started to enter the public forum. The whole process is still ongoing, but it is breaking the silence on sexuality taboos. AIDS concerns also bring funding, and many organizations are working to fight the illness. The related knowledge and information on sexuality is spreading continuously among Chinese people, and it also strongly helps people to overcome the stereotypes, bias and ignorance regarding AIDS and health and sexuality issues.

References and further reading


*James Farrer ''Opening Up: Youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai''. ISBN 0226238717
*Evans Harriet ''Women and Sexuality in China: Dominant Discourses of Female Sexuality and Gender Since 1949''. ISBN 0745613985
*Elaine Jeffreys ''Sex and Sexuality in China''. ISBN 0415401437

Rural society in the People's Republic of China

Rural society in the People's Republic of China occupies more than a half of China's population and has a varied range in terms of standard of living and life patterns. In and coastal China, rural areas have seen increased development and are, in some areas, beginning to catch up statistically to economies. In and western regions, rural society has continued to be seen as of a low standard and primitive. Basic needs such as running water and accessible transportation are still very much a problem in these areas.

History


Founding of the People's Republic


One of the major avowed objects of the Communist Party of China during its rise to prominence between 1921 and 1949 was the improvement of the standard of living of the average Chinese citizen, the vast majority of whom were rural dwellers. During the pre-1949 period, the CPC played a major role in transforming rural life in areas it influenced or controlled. After 1949, wholesale transformation was affected. A major area was land reform, where control was taken from traditional and wealthy peasants, and appropriated to the state, that is, . China in the early post-1949 period saw increases in mechanization of agriculture, the spread of electricity, running water, and modern technology to rural areas. However, by the late 1950s, much remained to be done.

Mao noted that most benefits were accruing not to the rural areas, where the vast majority of Chinese still lived, and who were the ostensible focus of the revolution, but to urban centers. Identity card systems channeled unequal degrees of resources, including food rations, to urbanites and rural dwellers. The "rustication" of the Cultural Revolution was intended to focus China's energy on agriculture and improving rural life rather than unbalanced development in intellectual and urban pursuits.

Great Leap Forward


During the Great Leap Forward campaign of 1958 to 1960, China's leaders attempted to accelerate collectivization and dramatically increase the pace of industrial production through the country, particularly in rural areas. This most involved small-scale production, such as the smelting of "backyard" steel. It was thought that through collectivization and mass labour, China's steel production would surpass that of the United Kingdom within only 15 years after the start of the "leap."

An experimental commune was established in Henan early in 1958, and soon spread throughout the country. Tens of millions were mobilised to produce one commodity, symbolic of industrialisation—steel. Approximately 25,000 communes were set-up, each with around 5,000 households. The hope was to industrialize by making use of the massive supply of cheap labor and avoid having to import heavy machinery. Small backyard steel furnaces were built in every commune while peasants produced small nuggets of cast iron made out of scrap. Simultaneously, peasants communities were collectivised.

The Great Leap Forward is now widely seen both within China and outside as a major economic disaster. Peasants often abandoned farming to produce steel or work in other industrial production. The three years between 1959 and 1962 were known as the "Three Bitter Years," the Three Years of Natural Disasters , and the Great Leap Famine, as the Chinese people suffered from extreme shortages of food. The period had a profound impact on the history of rural life in China.

Post-Mao Zedong era


With the death of Mao in 1976 and the rise of the rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping, new policies in China's economy shifted the approach from collective farming to household-based production quotas, in many ways reversing decades of collectivization efforts. In many areas of China, especially southern and coastal China, the standard of living improved dramatically after Deng's reforms. Township and Village Enterprises brought industrial production to rural areas--predominantly along the souther coasts--helping open these rural communities to greater economic prosperity.
Soon, however, an imbalance appeared where northern, interior, and western China remained at a far lower degree of economic development, a situation which persists to the 21st century. However, there are multiple, complex factors contributing to this state of affairs. For instance, distances are much farther, and geography often more challenging, in western and interior regions. Population is more spread out; social structures may also play a role, in that the demographics and social structures of these regions often differ significantly from those of coastal China.

Deng Xiaoping's reforms included the introduction of planned, centralized management of the macro-economy by technically proficient bureaucrats, abandoning Mao's mass campaign style of economic construction. Deng sustained Mao's legacy to the extent that he stressed the primacy of agricultural output and encouraged a significant decentralization of decision making in the rural economy teams and individual peasant households. At the local level, material incentives, rather than political appeals, were to be used to motivate the labor force, including allowing peasants to earn extra income by selling the produce of their private plots at free market.

Rural markets selling peasants' homegrown products and the surplus products of communes were revived under the more free-market economic approach of Deng. Not only did rural markets increase agricultural output, they stimulated industrial development as well. With peasants able to sell surplus agricultural yields on the open market, domestic consumption stimulated industrialization as well and also created political support for more difficult economic reforms.

Development remains uneven, with many highly prosperous areas far outpacing deeply impoverished regions where parents have great difficulty attaining enough income to ensure their children can be sent to school, despite the already-low education fees. Indeed, educational and social imbalances are a salient feature of this uneven development.

One emerging trend since at least the 1990s is the "floating population" or "black people", rural migrants entering urban areas in search of work. Until recent developments, rural residents lacked the legal permission to resettle in urban areas without approval, yet between tens and hundred of millions did resettle in search of jobs. Many have found work, in the form of construction and other sectors with relatively low wages and benefits, and high workplace hazards. Numerous social issues have developed as a result, namely discrimination of ruralites in cities, psychological isolation of rural migrants, some of which has led to crime. In this sense, then, rural life has "entered" the cities.

Lack of employment opportunities has increasingly made life in many rural regions difficult, hence the apparent enticement to resettle in urban areas. Of course, jobs are still limited, so many do relocate in cities only to find prospects much more meager than they had expected. Statistics suggest a very high proportion of residents of rural areas are or .

The development of Special Economic Zones also spurred rural growth in some parts of China.

Collectivization and class status


The first major action to alter village society was the land reform of the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which the party sent work teams to every village to carry out its land reform policy. This in itself was an unprecedented display of administrative and political power. The land reform had several related goals. The work teams were to redistribute some land from the wealthier families or land-owning trusts to the poorest segments of the population and so to effect a more equitable distribution of the basic means of production; to overthrow the village elites, who might be expected to oppose the party and its programs; to recruit new village leaders from among those who demonstrated the most commitment to the party's goals; and to teach everyone to think in terms of class status rather than kinship group or patron-client ties. In pursuit of the last goal, the party work teams convened extensive series of meetings, and they classified all the village families either as landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, or poor peasants. These labels, based on family landholdings and overall economic position roughly between 1945 and 1950, became a permanent and hereditary part of every family's identity and, as late as 1980, still affected, for example, such things as chances for admission to the armed forces, colleges, universities, and local administrative posts and even marriage prospects.

The collectivization of agriculture was essentially completed with the establishment of the people's communes in 1958. Communes were large, embracing scores of villages. They were intended to be multipurpose organizations, combining economic and local administrative functions. Under the commune system the household remained the basic unit of consumption, and some differences in standards of living remained, although they were not as marked as they had been before land reform. Under such a system, however, upward mobility required becoming a team or commune cadre or obtaining a scarce technical position such as a being a truck driver.

Decollectivization


Under the collectivized system, grain production kept up with population growth , and the rural population was guaranteed a secure but low level of subsistence. But the collectivized system seemed to offer few possibilities for rapid economic growth. There was some discontent with a system that relied so heavily on orders from above and made so little allowance for local conditions or local initiative. In the late 1970s, administrators in provincial-level units with extensive regions of low yields and consequent low standards of living began experimenting with new forms of tenure and production. In most cases, these took the form of breaking up the collective production team, contracting with individual households to work assigned portions of collective land, and expanding the variety of crops or livestock that could be produced. The experiments were deemed successful and popular, and they soon spread to all districts. By the winter of 1982-1983, the people's communes were abolished; they were replaced by administrative townships and a number of specialized teams or businesses that often leased such collective assets as tractors and provided services for money.

The agricultural reforms of the early 1980s led to a confusingly large number of new production arrangements and contracts. Underlying the variability of administrative and contractual forms were several basic principles and trends. In the first place, land, the fundamental means of production, remained collective property. It was leased, allocated, or contracted to individual households, but the households did not own the land and could not transfer it to other households. The household became, in most cases, the basic economic unit and was responsible for its own production and losses. Most economic activity was arranged through contracts, which typically secured promises to provide a certain amount of a commodity or sum of money to the township government in return for the use of land, or workshops, or tractors.

The goal of the contracting system was to increase efficiency in the use of resources and to tap peasant initiative. The rigid requirement that all villages produce grain was replaced by recognition of the advantages of specialization and exchange, as well as a much greater role for markets. Some "specialized households" devoted themselves entirely to production of cash crops or provision of services and reaped large rewards. The overall picture was one of increasing specialization, differentiation, and exchange in the rural economy and in society in general. Rural incomes increased rapidly, in part because the state substantially increased the prices it paid for staple crops and in part because of economic growth stimulated by the expansion of markets and the rediscovery of comparative advantage.

Role of the household


Decollectivization increased the options available to individual households and made household heads increasingly responsible for the economic success of their households. In 1987, for example, it was legally possible to leave the village and move into a nearby town to work in a small factory, open a noodle stand, or set up a machine repair business. Farmers, however, still could not legally move into medium-sized or large cities. The reported an increased appreciation in the countryside for education and an increased desire for agriculturally oriented newspapers and journals, as well as clearly written manuals on such profitable trades as rabbit-raising and beekeeping. As specialization and division of labor increased, along with increasingly visible differences in income and living standards, it became more difficult to encompass most of the rural population in a few large categories. During the early 1980s, the pace of economic and social change in rural China was rapid, and the people caught up in the change had difficulty making sense of the process.

Consequences of rural reform


The state retained both its powers and its role in the rural economy in the 1980s. Decollectivization, like the collectivization of the 1950s, was directed from the top down. Sometimes, apparently, it was imposed on communities that had been content with their collective methods. But in permitting households and communities greater leeway to decide what to produce and in allowing the growth of rural markets and small-scale industries, the state stepped back from the close supervision and mandatory quotas of the 1960s and 1970s.

Decollectivization obviated the supervisory functions of low-level cadres, who no longer needed to oversee work on the collective fields. Some cadres became full-time administrators in township offices, and others took advantage of the reforms by establishing specialized production households or by leasing collective property at favorable rates. Former cadres, with their networks of connections and familiarity with administrative procedures, were in a better position than ordinary farmers to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the growth of markets and commercial activity. Even those cadres not wholly devoted to increasing their own families' income found that to serve their fellow villagers as expected it was necessary to act as entrepreneurs. Village-level cadres in the mid-1980s were functioning less as overseers and more as extension agents and marketing consultants.

By 1987 rural society was more open and diverse than in the 1960s and 1970s, and the rigid collective units of that period, which had reflected the state's overwhelming concern for security, had been replaced by networks and clusters of smaller units. The new, looser structure demonstrated the priority placed on efficiency and economic growth. Basic security, in the sense of an adequate supply of food and guarantees of support for the disabled, orphaned, or aged, was taken for granted. Less than half of China's population remembered the insecurity and risks of pre-1950 society, but the costs and inefficiencies of the collective system were fresh in their minds. Increased specialization and division of labor were trends not likely to be reversed. In the rural areas the significance of the work unit appeared to have diminished, although people still lived in villages, and the actions of low-level administrative cadres still affected ordinary farmers or petty traders in immediate ways.

The state and its officials still dominated the economy, controlled supplies of essential goods, taxed and regulated businesses and markets, and awarded contracts. The stratification system of the Maoist period had been based on a hierarchy of functionally unspecialized cadres directing the labors of a fairly uniform mass of peasants. It was replaced in the 1980s by a new elite of economically specialized households and entrepreneurs who had managed to come to terms with the administrative cadres who controlled access to many of the resources necessary for economic success. Local cadres still had the power to impose fees, taxes, and all manner of exactions. The norms of the new system were not clear, and the economic and social system continued to change in response to the rapid growth of rural commerce and industry and to national economic policies and reforms.

Regulations and favors


Increased commercial activity produced a high degree of normative ambiguity, especially in areas like central Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces, where rural economic growth was fastest. Neither the proper role of local officials nor the rights and obligations of new entrepreneurs or traders were clear. The line between the normal use of personal contacts and hospitality and extraordinary and criminal favoritism and corruption was ambiguous. There were hints of the development of a system of patron-client ties, in which administrative cadres granted favors to ordinary farmers in return for support, esteem, and an occasional gift. The increased number of corruption cases reported in the Chinese press and the widespread assumption that the decollectivization and rural economic reforms had led to growing corruption probably reflected both the increased opportunities for deals and favors of all sorts and the ambiguous nature of many of the transactions and relationships. The party's repeated calls for improved "socialist spiritual civilization" and the attempts of the central authorities both to create a system of civil law and to foster respect for it can be interpreted as responses to the problem. On the local level, where cadres and entrepreneurs were engaged in constant negotiation on the rules of their game, the problem was presumably being addressed in a more straightforward fashion.

Family and household


In past Chinese society, the family provided every individual's support, livelihood, and long-term security. Today the state guarantees such security to those with no families to provide for them, and families and work units share long-term responsibility for the individual. The role of families has changed, but they remain important, especially in the countryside. Family members are bound, in law and custom, to support their aged or disabled members. The state, acting through work units, provides support and benefits only when families cannot. Households routinely pool income, and any individual's standard of living depends on the number of household wage earners and the number of dependents. In both cities and villages, the highest incomes usually are earned by households with several wage earners, such as unmarried adult sons or daughters.

In late traditional society, family size and structural complexity varied directly with class. Rural landlords and government officials had the largest families, poor peasants the smallest. The poorest segment of the population, landless laborers, could not afford to marry and start families. The need to provide for old age and the general association between the numbers of sons surviving to adulthood and long-term family success motivated individuals to create various non-standard family forms. Couples who produced no sons, or no children at all, adopted or purchased infants outright. Families with daughters but no sons tried to find men willing to marry their daughters and move into their families, abandoning their original families and sometimes even their original s. Families with daughters but no property to attract a son-in-law were sometimes forced to sell their daughters as concubines or prostitutes. The variation in family size and complexity was the result of variation in class position and of the dual role of the household as both family and economic enterprise.

In contemporary society, rural families no longer own land or pass it down to the next generation. They may, however, own and transmit houses. Rural families pay medical expenses and school fees for their children. Under the people's commune system in force from 1958 to 1982, the income of a peasant family depended directly on the number of laborers it contributed to the collective fields. This, combined with concern over the level of support for the aged or disabled provided by the collective unit, encouraged peasants to have many sons. Under the agricultural reforms that began in the late 1970s, households took on an increased and more responsible economic role. The labor of family members is still the primary determinant of income. But rural economic growth and commercialization increasingly have rewarded managerial and technical skills and have made unskilled farm labor less desirable. As long as this economic trend continues in the countryside in the late 1980s, peasant families are likely to opt for fewer but better educated children.

The consequence of the general changes in China's economy and the greater separation of families and economic enterprises has been a greater standardization of family forms since 1950. In 1987 most families approximated the middle peasant norm of the past. Such a family consisted of five or six people and was based on marriage between an adult son and an adult woman who moved into her husband's family. The variant family forms - either the very large and complex or those based on minor, nonstandard forms of - were much less common. The state had outlawed concubinage, child betrothal, and the sale of infants or females, all of which were formerly practiced, though not common. Increased life expectancy meant that a greater proportion of infants survived to adulthood and that more adults lived into their sixties or seventies. More rural families were able to achieve the traditional goal of a three-generation family in the 1980s. There were fewer orphans and young or middle-aged widows or widowers. Far fewer men were forced to retain lifelong single status. Divorce, although possible, was rare, and families were stable, on-going units.

A number of traditional attitudes toward the family have survived without being questioned. It is taken for granted that everyone should marry, and marriage remains part of the definition of normal adult status. Marriage is expected to be permanent. That marriage requires a woman to move into her husband's family and to become a daughter-in-law as well as a wife is still largely accepted. The norm of patrilineal descent and the assumption that it is sons who bear the primary responsibility for their aged parents remain. The party and government have devoted great effort to controlling the number of births and have attempted to limit the number of children per couple. But the authorities have not attempted to control population growth by suggesting that some people should not marry at all.

In the past, kinship principles were extended beyond the domestic group and were used to form large-scale groups, such as lineages. Lineages were quite distinct from families; they were essentially corporate economic-political groups. They controlled land and, in some areas of China, dominated whole villages and sets of villages and held title to most of the farmland. Like most other late traditional associations, lineages were dominated by wealthy and educated elites. Ordinary peasants paid as much of their crop to their lineage group as they might have to a landlord. The Communists denounced these organizations as feudal systems by means of which landlords exploited others. The lineages were suppressed in the early 1950s and their land confiscated and redistributed in the land reform. Communal worship of distant lineage ancestors lost much of its justification with the dissolution of the lineage estate and was easily suppressed over the next several years. Domestic ancestor worship, in which members of a single family worshiped and memorialized their immediate ancestors, continued at least until 1966 and 1967, in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards destroyed altars and ancestral tablets. In 1987 the party was still condemning ancestor worship as superstitious but had made little effort to end it.

Marriage



The Marriage Law of 1950 guaranteed everyone the freedom to choose his or her marriage partner. Nevertheless, especially in the countryside, there were few opportunities to meet potential mates. Rural China offered little privacy for courtship, and in villages there was little public tolerance for flirting or even extended conversation between unmarried men and women. Introductions and go-betweens continued to play a major role in the arrangement of marriages. In most cases each of the young people, and their parents, had an effective veto over any proposed match.

In the past, marriage was seen as the concern of families as well as of the two parties to the match. Families united by marriage were expected to be of equivalent status, or the groom's family to be of somewhat higher status. This aspect of marriage patterns has continued while the definitions of status have changed. Because inherited wealth was eliminated as a significant factor, evaluation had been shifted to estimates of earning power and future prosperity. The most desirable husbands have been administrative cadres, party members, and employees of large state enterprises. Conversely, men from poor villages have had difficulty finding wives. From the early 1950s to the late 1970s, when hereditary class labels were very significant, anyone with a "counter-revolutionary" background, that is, anyone previously identified with the landlord or even rich peasant class, was a bad prospect for marriage. Such pariahs often had no choice but to marry the offspring of other families with "bad" class backgrounds. At the other end of the social scale, there appeared to be a high level of intermarriage among the children of high-level cadres.

Community structure


Most rural Chinese has lived in one of some 900,000 villages, which have an average population of from 1,000 to 2,000 people. Villages have never been self-contained, self-sufficient units, and the social world of Chinese peasants has extended beyond their home villages. Almost all new wives come into a village from other settlements, and daughters marry out. All villagers have close kinship ties with families in other villages, and marriage go-betweens shuttle from village to village.

Before 1950 clusters of villages centered on small market towns that linked them to the wider economy and society. Most peasants were only a few hours' walk or less from a market town, which provided not only opportunities to buy and sell but also opportunities for entertainment, information, social life, and a host of specialized services. The villages around a market formed a social unit that, although less immediately visible than the villages, was equally significant.

From the early 1950s on, China's revolutionary government made great efforts to put the state and its ideology into direct contact with the villages and to sweep aside the intermediaries and brokers who had traditionally interpreted central policies and national values for villagers. The state and the party were generally successful, establishing unprecedented degrees of political and ideological integration of villages into the state and of village-level awareness of state policies and political goals.

The unintended consequence of the economic and political policies of the 1950s and 1960s was to increase the closed, corporate quality of China's villages and to narrow the social horizons of villagers. Land reform and the reorganization of villages as subunits of people's communes meant that villages became collective landholding units and had clear boundaries between their lands and those of adjacent villages. Central direction of labor on collective fields made the former practices of swapping labor between villages impossible. The household registration and rationing systems confined villagers to their home settlements and made it impossible for them to seek their fortune elsewhere. Cooperation with fellow villagers and good relations with village leaders became even more important than they had been in the past. The suppression of rural markets, which accompanied the drive for self-sufficiency in grain production and other economic activities, had severe social as well as economic consequences. Most peasants had neither reason nor opportunity for regular trips to town, and their opportunities for exchange and cooperation with residents of other villages were diminished. Villages became work units, with all that that implied.

Decollectivization in the early 1980s resulted in the revival of rural marketing, and a limited relaxation of controls on out-migration opened villages and diminished the social boundaries around them. The social world of peasants expanded, and the larger marketing community took on more significance as that of the village proper was diminished. Village membership, once the single most important determinant of an individual's circumstances, became only one of a number of significant factors, which also included occupation, personal connections, and managerial talent.

Healthcare


After 1949, the Chinese healthcare system, in rural areas the first tier was made up of "barefoot doctors" working out of village medical centers. They provided preventive and primary-care services, with an average of two doctors per 1,000 people. At the next level were the township health centers, which functioned primarily as out-patient clinics for about 10,000 to 30,000 people each. These centers had about ten to thirty beds each, and the most qualified members of the staff were assistant doctors. The two lower-level tiers made up the "rural collective health system" that provided most of the country's medical care. Only the most seriously ill patients were referred to the third and final tier, the county hospitals, which served 200,000 to 600,000 people each and were staffed by senior doctors who held degrees from 5-year medical schools.

In the late 20th and early 21st century, the availability and quality of health care varied widely from city to countryside. According to 1982 census data, in rural areas the crude death rate was 1.6 per 1,000 higher than in urban areas, and life expectancy was about 4 years lower. The number of senior physicians per 1,000 population was about 10 times greater in urban areas than in rural ones; state expenditure on medical care was more than -Y26 per capita in urban areas and less than -Y3 per capita in rural areas. There were also about twice as many hospital beds in urban areas as in rural areas. These are aggregate figures, however, and certain rural areas had much better medical care and nutritional levels than others.

Production brigade

A production brigade was formerly the basic accounting and farm production unit in the people's commune system. were largely disbanded during the agricultural reforms of 1982-85. In the administrative hierarchy, the team was the lowest level, the next higher levels being the production brigade and people's commune. Typically the team owned most of the land and was responsible for income distribution. Since 1984 most teams have been replaced by villages.

People's commune

The people's commune in the People's Republic of China, were formerly the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas during the period of 1958 to 1982-85 until they were replaced by s. Communes, the largest units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions.

History


The People's commune was born during the Great Leap Forward, when Mao Zedong had a vision of surpassing the United Kingdom and the United States in a short period of time in terms of steel production. Mao also wanted to mobilize peasants to undertake huge water projects during the winter slack seasons in order to improve agricultural productivity.

Each commune was a combination of smaller farm collectives, consisted of 4,000-5,000 households, and larger ones could consist of up to 20,000 households.

The Peoples' commune was made official state policy in 1958 after Mao Zedong visited an unofficial commune in Henan.

Formation


In order to put this radical plan into action, Mao used the Anti-Rightist Movement to silence his political opponents so he faced virtually no opposition when he finally implemented the People's communes. Using various propaganda campaigns, Mao gained the initial support of the peasants.

The People's communes were formed in support of the Great Leap Forward campaign and remains an inseparable part of the campaign, as shown in the Three Red Banners propaganda poster.

Commune life


In the commune, everything was shared. Private kitchens became redundant, and everything in the private kitchen, such as tables, chairs, cooking utensils and pans were all contributed to the commune's kitchen. Private cooking was banned and replaced by communal dining.

Everything originally owned by the households, private animals, stored grains and other food items were also contributed to the commune. They were put to different uses as assigned by the commune. All farming activities were to be centrally assigned by cadres every morning. Even money was outlawed in some places. Furthermore, family life was abolished; communal nurseries and homes for the elderly were established, and people were not allowed to eat with their families.
A work point system was used to calculate rewards, and those who earned above-average work points could be eligible for cash rewards.

Mainlander

Mainlanders are people who live in a region considered a "mainland". It is frequently used in the context of Greater China, referring to who live, were born, or have their "native province" in mainland China as opposed to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, or Singapore.

Other uses of ''mainlander''


In Tasmania, mainlander refers to Australians from the other five states and the territories, which are situated on the Australian mainland.

In New Zealand, mainlander refers to a resident of the South Island, which is the bigger island.

In Canada, mainlander is often used on the East Coast by residents of , Prince Edward Island, Deer Island, New Brunswick, Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick or Cape Breton Island. On the West Coast the term is used by people who live on Vancouver Island.

In Hawaii, mainlander is sometimes used to refer to Americans from the continental United States.

In Corsica, the word ''continental'' is used by local residents to refer to people born in mainland France.

Chinese mainlanders




In Taiwan, mainlander can refer to two different groups:
# The ''waisheng ren'' are persons who emigrated from mainland China near the end of the Chinese Civil War and their descendants.
#* This is as opposed to the Taiwanese local residents, , who were in Taiwan prior to the mass exodus near the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War.
# The ''dalu ren'' refers to residents of mainland China.
#* This group excludes almost all Taiwanese, including the ''waisheng ren'', except recent immigrants from mainland China, such as those made Republic of China citizens through marriage. When Westerners hear the term mainlander in the context of Chinese culture or politics, they generally think of this definition.

Names


''Waisheng ren'' are also called more formally, ''waisheng ji ren'' , meaning "persons who are external-province natives." They are also given the nickname of ?·-á , meaning "taro," in the . The term is somewhat pejorative because it refers to the perceived "dirtiness" of some of the early KMT troops.

The opposite of waisheng ren is ''bensheng ren'' who are called "sweet potato" which comes from the shape of Taiwan. ''Bensheng ren'' includes three distinct groups: the , the Hakka, and the .

The translations of ''waisheng ren'' and ''bensheng ren'' into English poses some interesting difficulties. The usual English translation of ''waisheng ren'' is Mainlander, although many ''waisheng ren'' find this translation uncomfortable since it implies that ''waishengren'' are not fully Taiwanese. Translating the term ''bensheng ren'' as "native Taiwanese" is also problematic because of confusion with Taiwanese aborigines. Most academic literature uses the terms ''waishengren'' and ''benshengren'' directly. The terms rarely come up in the English-speaking media.

Many supporters of Taiwan independence object to the term "other province people", because it implies that Taiwan is a province of China, and prefer the name "new immigrant". The latter term has not become popular in Taiwan and is extremely unpopular among ''waishengren'' themselves.

Chinese Civil War veterans especially are called "old taro" , or ''waisheng lao bing'' , "old external-province soldiers," in . In government publications and the media, they are also called ''rongmin'' , meaning "honorable citizens."

Mainlanders make up about 10% of the population of Taiwan and are heavily concentrated in northern Taiwan especially in the Taipei area. Although no longer dominating the government, ''waishengren'' still make up a disproportionately large fraction of bureaucrats and military officers.

Definition



The formal definition of a mainlander is someone living in Taiwan whose "native province" is not Taiwan. Native province does not mean the province in which one is born, but rather the province whose father's family comes from. Until the early 1990s, identity cards in Taiwan contained an entry for native province. The removal of native province from identity cards and replacement with place of birth was motivated in large part to reduce the mainlander/local distinction. This is especially true when virtually all "mainlanders" born after 1949 were born in Taiwan, not in their "native provinces."

Because of the "native province" definition, someone who is born on Taiwan, but whose father's family roots are not in Taiwan, is generally considered a Mainlander. By contrast, someone who is not born in Taiwan, but whose native province is Taiwan is generally not considered a Mainlander. Similarly, a child that is born to a Taiwanese businessman residing in the PRC would generally not be considered a ''waishengren''.

Furthermore, recent immigrants to Taiwan from Mainland China, mostly from marriages to Taiwanese businessmen, mail-order brides, and undocumented migrants, are not considered ''waishengren'', but make up a separate social category. Although the numbers of these people are thought of as small and insignificant by most Taiwanese, it has been pointed out that recent immigrants from Mainland China and their children actually make up a larger population in Taiwan than Taiwanese aborigines.

The definitions get even fuzzier with mixed marriages and the fact that provincial identity sometimes does not correlate in obvious ways to characteristics such as political orientation or ability to speak Taiwanese. For example, although Mainlanders are often stereotyped as supporting Chinese reunification and opposing Taiwan independence there are numerous examples where this formula does not hold. Similarly, it is common to find younger ''waishengren'' who speak fluent and younger ''benshengren'' who cannot speak it at all.

The great majority of ''waishengren'' were born in Taiwan, and they do not speak the dialect of their "native province."

History


''Waishengren'' are descended from the people who followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan after the Kuomintang lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949. These people included KMT officials, soldiers, merchants, bankers, executives, scientists, various other intellectuals, and anyone else who sensed that the Communist regime would ultimately be worse, and had the connections and money to escape mainland China. Until the 1970s, these people controlled the political systems of Taiwan; this, along with the looting and corruption that occurred under 's military government immediately following the Japanese surrender in 1945, generated resentment among ''benshengren'' and was one of the main causes of the Taiwan independence movement.

Starting in the 1970s, nationalist dominance of the government began to recede. This was due to a lack of a political or social theory that would justify continued nationalist dominance, meritocratic policies which allowed local Taiwanese to move up in the political establishment, and economic prosperity which allowed for social mobility for those outside of the political establishment.

Intermarriage and a new generation raised under the same environment has largely blurred the distinction between ''waishengren'' and ''benshengren''.

In the late 1990s, the concept of "The New Taiwanese" became popular both among supporters of Taiwan independence and Chinese reunification in order to advocate a more tolerant proposition that ''waishengren'', who sided with the Allies against the reluctant Japanese colony in Taiwan during World War II, are no less Taiwanese than ''benshengren''. However it quickly became apparent that the notion of New Taiwanese meant different things to supporters of independence and unification. To supporters of independence, the concept of New Taiwanese implied that ''waishengren'' should assimilate into a Taiwanese identity which was separate from the Chinese one. By contrast, the supporters of Chinese reunification seemed to believe that all Taiwanese should restore a previously marginalized Taiwanese identity without antagonizing a larger pan-Chinese identity.

As of the early 21st century, more and more ''waishengren'' see themselves as Taiwanese and as socially distinct from current residents of Mainland China. Unlike those belonging to groups such as the Hakka or Taiwanese aboriginals, ''waishengren'' are not encouraged to find their root, and their relationship with anti-China organizations suffers further as a result. Most of them, especially those of the younger generation, make extensive efforts to establish themselves as Taiwanese, sometimes by manifesting good interest in Taiwanese culture. At the same time, right-wing discourse alleging that pro-unification ''waishengren'' are a fifth column for the People's Republic of China agonizes those mainlanders who regard Taiwan as their new homeland.

Now, the term "mainlander" is used to describe a person, Chinese by race, born and raised in mainland China, thereby avoiding confusion with ''waishengren''. .

People


Prominent mainlanders in Taiwan include:
* John Chang, politician, born in mainland China.
* Hau Pei-tsun, politician, born in mainland China.
* Hau Lung-pin, politician, born in Taiwan, son of Hau Pei-tsun.
* Li Ao, writer, born in mainland China.
* Ang Lee, film director, born in Taiwan.
* Ma Ying-jeou, , born in Hong Kong.
* Pai Hsien-yung, writer, born in mainland China.
* James Soong, politician, born in mainland China.
* Taylor Wang, first ethnic Chinese astronaut, born in mainland China.
* , forensic scientist, born in mainland China.

Lien Chan sometimes is pejoratively denoted as a mainlander, although the general perception on Taiwan is that he is not. Although he was born in mainland China, his father's family had roots in Taiwan.

Recent mainland immigration to Taiwan


Since the mid-1990s, there has been a small amount of mainland Chinese immigration into Taiwan. These immigrants are predominantly female and are often colloquially known as ''dàlù mèi'' , which means "mainland girls" . These consist of two categories: female brides of businessmen who work in the mainland; and women who have married rural Taiwanese, mainly through a marriage broker. This population is generally seen as socially distinct from ''waishengren''.

Chinese mainlanders


In Hong Kong and Macau , "mainlander" refers to residents of mainland China, or recent immigrants from mainland China.

Names


Residents of mainland China are usually called 大陸人 , 內地人 , or sometimes 內地同胞 . The third term is often used by leftist institutions, while the second term is neutral, and the first term is derogatory.

Mainlanders are sometimes called 表叔, 表姐 , and 阿燦, which were coined by various characters in s and television series. These terms are considered derogatory and are politically incorrect. Recent immigrants are more politically correctly called 新移民 . 阿燦 is especially rude.

History


At the time when was by , the colony first covered only Hong Kong Island, with a population of only around 6 000, most of whom were fishermen. Other than the indigenous population on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories who had lived in the area before the British arrived, most people in Hong Kong either immigrated from somewhere in mainland China, or were descendants of those immigrants.

The largest influx of population from the mainland was during the Taiping Rebellion and the Chinese Civil War . The British colonial government maintained a touch-base policy until the early 1980s, allowing people from Mainland China to apply to be Hong Kong residents if they manage to arrive in the territory.

Many of these early immigrants, especially those who moved from Shanghai in the 1940s and early 50's to escape the government, came to dominate the business world in Hong Kong. In the 1980s and 1990's, Shanghai-born immigrants also occupied prominent roles in the government, including former Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa and former Chief Secretary Anson Chan.

After decades of wars, internal conflicts and the Cultural Revolution, there was a large gap in the level of development between Hong Kong and the mainland. Many new immigrants arriving in the late 1970s and early 1980s were thought to be less sophisticated, and preserved many habits from the rural way of lives. A TV series starring Liu Wai Hung reflected the life of a new immigrant in Hong Kong. Nonetheless, new immigrants of this time were believed to be hardworking and optimistic, and were welcome by people in Hong Kong.

Starting from the early 1990s many new immigrants to Hong Kong are the spouses of Hong Kong males, and their children. Many of them are not rich, and some have to rely on money from to survive. Although only a few do so, new immigrants of this time were held in a negative view.

Education


Since the handover in 1997, the academic exchange between Hong Kong and mainland China became much more common. In the year of 2004, a policy that allowed mainland high school students to apply for studying in Hong Kong universities has passed. The universities in Hong Kong began to admit students from mainland high school. It’s a breakthrough allowing students with different backgrounds learning and growing together. On the other hand, the Chinese government encouraged more Hong Kong local students to study in the mainland universities by offering scholarship or superiority with a much lower admission score. As a result, in the universities in Hong Kong, you can hear more students speaking Mandarin in campus. By the same token, in mainland, the students from Hong Kong take more percentage, comparing with 10 years ago.

Exchange student program contributes to this kind of academic communication. Some universities have bonded with other universities as "sister school." By dispatching several outstanding students to the other university every year, they can build a permanent relationship. Exchange program flourished when the interaction between mainland and Hong Kong becoming easier and more frequent. Both sides choose excellent students and expect them to be a culture-bridge. After several months communicating, each delegate can obtain a further understanding about a different culture. That’s really help to build a harmonious society for these young people will probably be the hard-core in future. Exchange student is just like an ambassador dispatched by her country, who also contribute to the multi-culture here. But before the handover, this kind of mixture is absolutely invisible.

Recent development


Since 1 July 1997, the day when Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, the immigration policies have changed. It is stated that "A person of Chinese nationality born outside Hong Kong before or after the establishment of the HKSAR to a parent who, at the time of birth of that person, was a Chinese citizen who is a permanent resident, is a permanent resident of the HKSAR and enjoys the right of abode in Hong Kong."

But in 1999, the Supreme Court of The HKSAR made a judgment that as long as the person is born in Hong Kong, he will be regarded as a permanent resident and will get the right of abode, even though his parents are not permanent residents of Hong Kong at the time he is born.

Since then, a lot of Mainlanders have come to live in Hong Kong. Every day there is a quota of 150.
* A daily sub-quota of 60 are given to children of all ages who are eligible for right of abode in Hong Kong.
* A sub-quota of 30 are for long-separated spouses;
* an unspecified sub-quota of 60 for other OWP applicants allocated to the following persons:
#Separated spouses irrespective of the length of separation;
#Dependent children coming to Hong Kong to join their relatives;
#Persons coming to Hong Kong to take care of their dependent parents;
#Dependent elderly people coming to Hong Kong to join their relatives;
#Those entering Hong Kong for the inheritance of property.

Starting from 2003 the mainland authorities loosened control over visiting Hong Kong and Macau of mainland residents. In the past residents from mainland could only visit Hong Kong and Macau for sightseeing as part of tour groups. The Individual Visit Scheme allows mainland residents of selected cities to visit Hong Kong and Macau for sightseeing on their own. It has boosted tourism in the two special administrative regions.

Quality Migrant Admission Scheme


Besides, on 28 June 2006, the HKSAR imposed the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme. It is a scheme aims at attracting highly skilled or talented persons who are fresh entrants not having the right to enter and remain in Hong Kong to settle in Hong Kong in order to enhance Hong Kong's economic competitiveness in the global market. Successful applicants are not required to secure an offer of local employment before their entry to Hong Kong for settlement. Many Mainland artists and former national sportsmen/sportswomen have applied for the right of abode via this way, such as Li Yundi and Lang Lang .

People


The following are some notable people who were born in the mainland and moved to Hong Kong later in their lives.
*Anson Chan, politician, born in Shanghai.
*Wong Jim , musician, born in Guangdong.
*Lau Chin Shek, politician, born in Guangdong.
*Tang Hsiang Chien, businessman, born in Shanghai.
*Tung Chee Hwa, politician, born in Shanghai.
*Wong Kar-wai, filmmaker, born in Shanghai.

Chinese mainlanders


Although the island of Hainan is not politically separate from China in the sense that Taiwan or Hong Kong/Macau are, consciousness of Hainan as an island leads local Hainanese to refer to recent immigrants from the Chinese mainland as "mainlanders" or 'inlanders' . In the 1990s, when there was a rapid influx of mainlanders looking to get rich quick from the province's status as a Special Economic Zone, there was considerable local resentment towards the new arrivals.

Human Rights in China (organization)

Human Rights in China is an , , non-governmental organization with a mission to promote international human rights and advance the institutional protection of these rights in the People's Republic of China.

Founded by Chinese students and scholars in March 1989, HRIC implements programs to generate institutional, systemic change in China while also engaging in critical advocacy strategies on behalf of individuals in China.

With offices in Hong Kong, New York, and Brussels, HRIC serves as a source of analysis and information on the human rights situation in China, as well as an active NGO advocate in the international arena. In 2005, HRIC was also recognized for its creative and effective use of technology by The Tech Museum of Innovation as one of twenty-five Tech Award Laureates of the year.

HRIC's Executive Director from 2002 to is Sharon Hom. HRIC's former Executive Director is Xiao Qiang.

Program


With a diverse network of domestic and international partners, HRIC links individual advocacy with systemic and policy interventions addressing human rights, technology, legal and administrative reform issues. HRIC’s core programs and reports address human rights violations affecting China’s rural population, migrant workers, ethnic minorities, women and children.

Domestic advocacy


HRIC's domestic work with political prisoners provides support for legal representation and assistance to activists in China. HRIC works with domestic Chinese groups internationally and domestically in calling upon the Chinese government to engage in a constructive reassessment of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and subsequent and to move toward greater reforms and social stability.

By supporting domestic groups such as the Tiananmen Mothers, HRIC links Chinese calls for redress to current international debates such as lifting the European Union arms embargo on China. HRIC’s online , is a Chinese-language archive documenting the history of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement. HRIC also maintains , an online petition mobilizing individuals and organizations worldwide to support the Tiananmen Mothers’ demands for accountability for the June 4th crackdown.

International advocacy


HRIC’s advocacy initiatives contribute to multilateral and bilateral human rights policy discussions, analyses and recommendations. HRIC provides briefings and reports to , , and the EU-China Dialogue.

Since 2002, HRIC has submitted over 30 individual cases of the victims of human rights abuses to the . All 12 detention cases for which decisions have been made have been determined arbitrary. These cases are additionally brought to the attention of governments such as the United States and European Union.

HRIC’s campaign , launched in 2003, is a research and monitoring project focusing on the Chinese government's human rights practices in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics. The IR 2008 campaign seeks to take strategic advantage of international windows of opportunity arising from China's role as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics, its increasing integration into the international community, and a growing Chinese civil society.

HRIC regularly addresses the relationship between corporate social responsibility, trade, and human rights through reports, briefings, and presentations, thus contributing to a global framework that respects and promotes human rights. HRIC has outlined a best practices matrix for IT companies doing business in China, involving information communication technology , surveillance and security, multilaterals, the media, governments, and NGOs.

E-Advocacy


HRIC’s E-Activism Project supports Chinese citizens’ increasing activism and promotes the free flow of information in China by building a technology platform that uses proxy server technology and a weekly e-newsletter sent to hundreds of thousands of subscribers in China. The project includes the development of six interrelated Web sites with online Chinese publications, tools for accountability, and online advocacy resources.

Funding


HRIC is funded by private foundations and individuals from Europe, Asia, and North America. . It also receives funding from National Endowment for Democracy .

NED Link


Michael Barker at Center for Research on Globalization criticized the link HRIC with National Endowment for Democracy . Quote:

:"Human Rights in China work appears to be closely related to that undertaken by it’s better known counterpart, Human Rights Watch, as Robert L. Bernstein, the founder and former chair of Human Rights Watch is currently the chair of HRIC’s board of directors . Not surprisingly Human Rights Watch and HRIC regularly work together to publish human rights reports, which is fitting as extremely close ties exist between Human Rights Watch and the global democracy manipulators .

:"The founder of Human Rights in China, Fu Xinyuan, is Associate Professor of Pathology at Yale University School of Medicine; he also sits on the advisory board of the Israel Science Foundation . Ironically, in 2005, The Guardian reported that foreign grant reviewers were boycotting the Israel Science Foundation due to the Israeli government’s human rights violations.

:"Since 2002, Human Rights in China’s executive director has been Sharon Hom – an individual who also serves as a member of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Advisory Committee, and is an emerita professor of law at the City University of New York School of Law. Prior to Hom’s appointment to Human Rights in China, the organization’s longstanding executive director – from 1991 to 2002 – was Qiang Xiao, who was formerly the vice-chair of the steering committee of the NED-initiated World Movement for Democracy, and presently acts as the director of the China Internet Project , sits on the board of advisors for the NED-funded International Campaign for Tibet, and is the chief editor of China Digital Times."

Ongoing publications


''China Rights Forum '' is HRIC's English-language quarterly journal. Since its founding in 1990, CRF has covered a range of issues regarding China's human rights developments. CRF provides space for the voices of Chinese scholars, artists, writers and activists promoting democratic reform, labor rights, freedom of expression, and the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and disadvantaged groups. Current and previous issues of CRF are available online.

''Ren Yu Ren Quan'' is a Chinese-language online monthly journal publishing in-depth analyses, research papers, current events commentaries, theoretical discussions and law reviews. Issues covered have included torture and corruption in China, Internet censorship and China’s unsound legal system.

''Huaxia Dianzi Bao'' is a Web site archive of HRIC's weekly Chinese-language e-newsletter. Each issue contains news from China that has been banned and censored in the mainland. The majority of the contributors and readers are mainland Chinese Internet users.

Reports


HRIC’s research fuels a range of reports and publications such as thematic reports and briefings, issues backgrounders, trends bulletins, and short reports on topical issues involving ethnic minorities, women and children, control of the media, labor rights and state secrets, legal reform and social unrest. HRIC regularly issues reports on human rights issues and circulates them to multilateral bodies, media, policy makers, governments, and NGOs.

Recently published


In June 2007, HRIC published ''State Secrets: China's Legal Labyrinth''. The report describes and examines the and shows how it allows and even promotes human rights violations by undermining the rights to freedom of expression and information, and by maintaining a culture of secrecy that has a chilling effect on efforts to develop the rule of law and independent civil society. The report also includes a set of concrete and specific recommendations relating to governance, legislative amendments and strengthening implementation.

In April 2007, ''China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions'', a report by HRIC and commissioned by Minority Rights Group International) was released. The report documents the serious impediments to the fulfillment of China's human rights obligations, in the areas of political participation, development, and preservation of cultural identity.

In April 2005, HRIC released a joint report with Human Rights Watch, ''Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang'', which reveals for the first time the complex architecture of law, regulation, and policy in Xinjiang that denies religious freedom, and by extension, freedom of association, assembly, and expression. The report is based on previously undisclosed Communist Party of China and government documents, as well as local regulations, official newspaper accounts and interviews conducted in Xinjiang.

In 2004, HRIC published ''Media Control in China'', a Chinese-language report countering China’s claims to easing controls on the media by openly portraying the oppressive, often violent, and lethal consequences of overstepping the government’s limitations on freedom of speech and of the press. The report has been partially translated into English, and has been widely circulated on Chinese Web sites, in classrooms, and at conferences. A revised and expanded edition was released in July 2006.

Ecological migration

Ecological migration is a policy adopted in 2001 by the Chinese government to relocate a large number of herders, in particular Mongolian herders of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, from their traditional grazing lands to agricultural and urban areas as part of the government's initiative to restore and recover the seriously degraded grassland ecosystem in the Autonomous Region. The term first appeared in 2001 on the electronic newsletter ''Southern Mongolia Watch'' published by the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center , a human rights organization based in New York.

According to SMHRIC, at least 650,000 ethnic Mongolian herders have been displaced as of 2006. The data originally appeared on reports by China's official presses Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television. A paper entitled ''Ecological Migration and Human Rights'' by Enhebatu Togochog, president of SMHRIC, states that human rights of the Mongolian herders have been seriously violated during the Ecological Migration process, and thousands of Mongolian herders lost their land, home and livelihood after the relocation.