Masses on the Move: China, Urbanization, and the Environment

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Panelists:

Morris Miller
Former Executive Director, World Bank

William Moomaw
Professor of Global Environmental Studies, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; Director, Tufts Institute on the Environment

Vaclav Smil
Professor of Geography, University of Manitoba, Canada; Author, China's Environmental Crisis

Moderator:
Austin Putman
EPIIC Colloquium

Interlocutor:
Alan Wachmanv
Assistant Professor of International Politics, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; President, China Institute in America

Migration is not merely an international phenomenon. As countries develop, people move from more rural areas to cities, placing greater demands on state infrastructures for transportation, electricity, and agriculture. How states contend with these new requirements and how citizens react to a changing quality of life are part of the greater issues of migration.<

China has three distinct internal migration trends. The first is a widespread movement from rural areas and aging industrial centers to the more prosperous coastal regions such as Shanghai and Fujian. The Chinese government employs a system of residence permits which makes housing and employment difficult to obtain outside one's home region. As economic restrictions are eased, however, more and more rural Chinese are subletting their fields to others and attempting to make a living as tradesmen in the larger cities. At the same time, workers in state-owned industries are being laid off as these firms struggle to modernize. These workers are being paid only a fraction of their promised pensions and are not receiving the benefits they have come to expect under a socialist regime. Overall, China's struggle to become competitive while maintaining tight control over human movement has resulted in over 50 million displaced workers.

Working against the trend toward urbanization is a Chinese government program designed to encourage migration to the more remote areas of the state, especially the Xinjiang and Xizang provinces. Opponents of the regime allege that these programs are politically motivated, representing an attempt by the state to overwhelm regions mainly populated by non-Han ethnic groups. Xizang, widely known by its pre-1974 independent name of Tibet, has experienced a population shift so drastic that only a small percentage of its current inhabitants are ethnically Tibetan. Government incentive programs can include housing subsidies or more relaxed requirements for population control.

The third major movement of people in modern China is caused by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The dam would supply clean energy at the cost of placing over 74,000 acres of agricultural land under water. More than 1.2 million people are slated for relocation due to the project.

This panel seeks to examine the tensions created as nations develop economically. What are the politics and the social consequences of a growing economy, and how can states meet the challenges that they pose? China provides an example of a strong state facing social issues of cultural conflict and rural/urban equity, while maintaining tight central political control.