Migrant Muslim traders in Yiwu

• In Event: Immigration and the Transformation of Chinese Society

Abstract

This paper will offer initial thoughts on the research project investigating how foreign Muslim traders in China interact with internal Muslim migrants, and how local governments respond to the dramatic changes in ethnic-religious relations in Yiwu, a town in southeast China with 0.8 million local population and 1 million migrants from other parts of China and overseas. Most of the migrants come to Yiwu to procure low-end light commodities gathered across China. These migrants include Muslim traders from the Middle East and South Asia, and about 3,000 Chinese Muslims from the Northwest working with the foreign Muslims. The local government in Yiwu responds to these changes in two ways: (1) building a state-of-the-art business infrastructure, which serves not only as the physical basis of government’s direct regulation on the migrants, but also to rationalize mobility and ethno-religious pluralism as a way to further economic development; (2) developing multiple channels to reach out to migrants, including approving 20 Islamic “prayer spots” and putting in place facilities to provide service and surveillance. These measures, however, fall short from articulating a clear long-term vision on the place of international and domestic Muslim migrants in Yiwu. The study focuses on a group of about 200 Arabic interpreters in Yiwu from Wuzhong prefecture of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Indispensable for daily interactions between international migrants, local people and government, they are also most directly exposed to foreign Islamic influences.

Author

• Biao Xiang, Oxford University