Selective Migration Policies with Chinese Characteristics

• In Event: Governing Migration in Asia

Abstract

A number of recent governmental statistics and international organization reports have highlighted China’s growing status as a fast-growing designation of economic migration, a major player in global talent competition, and one of the top sending countries of immigrants in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Asia. Since it launched its immigration reform in 2013, the Chinese government has enacted laws and issued regulations to attract foreign talent, facilitate the return of skilled Chinese nationals, and better regulate the entry, residence and employment of foreigners. For example, in addition to the one-year Z visa available to foreign workers with tertiary education, the Chinese government established new visa categories in 2013, such as the R visa, for highly talented foreign experts who are not former Chinese nationals (or their descendants) to enter and work in China for up to 10 years solely based on their education, expertise and skills and the new S-1 and S-2 visas, which permit short visits and long term stays of the family members of foreigners who reside in China for work or study. At the same time, the government established new provisions for punishing foreigners for working without authorization as well as the employers who hire them. By implementing policies that encourage high-skilled migration while tightening migration controls, China is following in the footsteps of OECD member states that have adopted selective migration policies, but the Chinese approach fits neither the “human capital” model based on government selection of permanent immigrants using a point system, as has been practiced by Canada, or the market-oriented, demand-driven model based on employer selection of temporary migrant workers and permanent immigrants, as practiced by the United States. Given China’s combination of authoritarian government with capitalist economic development strategies and integration into the world economy, China has been developing and implementing its own selective migration policies with Chinese characteristics. This paper will (1) provide an overview of China’s selective migration policies for attracting high-skilled migrants and controlling migration; (2) analyze political and administrative challenges to China’s selective migration policies; and (3) assess policy outcomes in terms of attracting the highly-skilled and strengthening political control.

Authors

• Rey Koslowski, SUNY, University at Albany

• Sheng Ding, Bloomsburg University