Geography OF China Exam 3 – May 6, 2006
I have not reviewed all of these terms. I have just compiled them from emails from some of you.
Key Terms – prepare to define and give the significance of each of these terms
Urban citizenship1. Urban citizenship no longer guarantees status. Urban citizens see things like rights to water and electricity as only for them. Floating workers see urban citizenship as access to urban resources and urban space. For laid-off urban workers, urban citizenship is the package of rights and entitlements guaranteed them by the state. They feel the government has a moral responsibility to provide for their welfare and survival.
Urban citizenship is the rights afforded to those with urban citizenship, directly tied to the hukou. Urban citizens feeel migrants are taking those rights; however, it is truly the state taking away those privileges.
2. Urban Citizenship refers to the position of urban dwellers in the Post-Mao era, in which they have urban hukou status but are not guaranteed to receive the social benefits that go along with it. In other words, urban citizenship has lost the meaning it once had under Mao and the hukou system which promised security in housing, food, health care, and education - the iron rice bowl. Urban citizenship allows those with the title to get housing within cities legally and to get education for their children for a lower price than migrants, but there is no job security anymore. The government can still use the term to exclude migrants from the system, though, and deny them access to certain jobs, to housing, and to basic needs like water, electricity, and affordable education for their children. Urban citizenship has become a term used to exclude rural residents rather than a guarantee of benefits for urban residents.
3. Urban Citizenship: Urban citizenship is “the package of rights and entitlements associated with legal residency in the city, including access to state subsidized housing, grain, medical care and virtually free education for ones children.” It is significant because it was a post-Mao adjustment that meant no more iron rice bowl for the urban citizens. Because of privatization and commercialization, a persons’ welfare no longer corresponded to their hukou. A sort of reversal of fortunes had begun to take place in some areas. Many migrants were able profit because of the relaxation of the hukou system, even though they were not legally urban citizens.
4. Urban Citizenship: Urban Citizenship refers to the package of rights and entitlements that are associated with legal residency in the city. It is related to the hukou system in that the country is divided into rural citizens and urban citizens. Access to urban resources now correlates with deepening privatization and commercialization not with one’s hukou status. There is now more face-to-face struggle over resources and space. This is significant because it further allows for the division of China into two separate Chinas. / Overland Chinese
1. Migrant workers from the interior of China, moving to the coasts of China, sending back large remittances back home. They are different from Overseas Chinese, who leave the country. The government has stopped subsidizing the local villages, so this is one way to help the problem.
2. Overland Chinese are rural residents who travel to coastal cities or other large inland cities to work and send large amounts of cash home to their villages and families, because they make far more money in a year in the cities than can be made by farming. They are also expected to keep the village informed about the job market and to help find jobs for those that come to the city from their own village. When they eventually return home they bring needed skills and experience to the village so that industry might be set up for the village. The money, connections, and skills that overland Chinese provide have a large impact on the well-being of the rural villages that they come from.
3. Overland Chinese: Overland Chinese are migrant laborers who come from the interior but work on the coast of China. They are significant because they send significant amounts of cash to their homes in the interior. They are different from overseas Chinese because the Overseas Chinese live outside of China. Both send significant amounts of money to their villages, sometimes amounting to 1 years worth of wages in 1 month. This money is significant for the villagers because without it, life would be even more difficult. Other significant aspects of this money. The workers work long hours for 6 or 7 days a week, accidents are common, there is mandatory overtime, workers are seen as expendable, and sometimes pay is delayed or avoided. Rural/Urban divide – urban villagers are really poor, no education, live day to day, while urban citizens are more wealthy, live in a more modern world, are in government favor, etc.
4. Overland Chinese -- People who move to make more money, then send the money home to their families in impovrished rural areas. Often the Overland Chinese live
and work under terrible conditions, but feel it is necessary to make money for their families. Not the same as Overseas Chinese, who travel to other countries to send money back to China, both to their families and in the form of grants and scholarships. Overland Chinese are significant because they distribute wealth directly to the poor instead of the poor having to live off the meager amount of government stipends left after each local government has skimmed off its share. Also significant because these traveling workers bring home new technologies, skill, ideas and modern ways of looking at the world.
ZhejiangVillage
1. The village challenged the government’s authority to control urban space and social order.
Created illegally outside of Beijing by migrant workers from ZhejiangVillage. It became successful. Urban citizens began actually working for the migrants because they had no work in the cities. Beijing government destroyed the village because they were offended by the power of the people. The deals brokered by the local people and the migrants took power from the Beijing government, the Beijing government felt threatened, tore it down.
2. ZhejiangVillage is a settlement in the southern part of Beijing made up of migrant workers from ZhejiangProvince. The village was built by migrants who were making a lot of money and had social connections with local leaders. They were able to buy off the local township and village leaders to obtain land, water, and electricity within Beijing. This provided much needed housing for the many migrants who came from Zhejiang for work, and it quickly became the center of economic activity as well. However, the Beijing city government considered the village illegal, because the villagers did not have urban citizenship, and they were also considered a threat because they had formed ties with the local government without city government permission and had begun policing themselves. In response, the Beijing government demolished the village.
3. ZheijangVillage:ZheijangVillage is a suburb of Beijing with migrants mostly from Zheijang. It is significant because the migrants had established themselves in commerce and also had built homes. Many local urban citizens started working for migrants because a lot of the factories were shutting down. People living there were officially illegal, as migrants don’t have the right to use urban space for private construction. Deals were made between the migrants and the local government and the central Beijing government felt that these deals were a threat to social order- not happy with the local government. Eventually the village was destroyed because of this threat.
4. ZhejiangVillage--Illegally created village on the outskirts of Beijing, created
by migrant workers from the Zhejiang province. Many migrants living there cut
deals with local governments for the space and to run their businesses, many of which became very successful. The irony is that urban residents often end up working for the migrant entrepreneurs because they could make more money doing that than working their government provided jobs.
The village was eventually torn down by the Beijing government because it felt
threatened by the deals the migrants were making with local governments because
they were decentralizing power and also possibly hurting the central government
economically. / Localization
1. Localization is incorporating an idea from somewhere else and adapting it, using one’s own cultural influence, and making it one’s own. It’s imbedded in a particular social and special context. McDonalds is an illustration of this because not only does McDonalds adapt to the locals, but there is also a reverse process as well, where Chinese themselves exert pressure on the foreign element. The signifigance is, who is influencing who?
Social processes are inherently structured in place. McDonalds becomes representative of Chinese culture. No longer fast food, but symbol of sophisication and modernity. Chinese style atmosphere, personal interactions between workers and people.
2. Localization is the process by which a global enterprise or idea is adopted and changed in a localized area, and locals are themselves changed as well. The best example would be McDonald’s in Beijing. The company changed to fit the social context of Beijing by using 95% locally grown food, hiring local workers, becoming a safe place to hang out and relax, becoming a family place, and by interacting with the local community, especially with children. This makes China’s McDonald’s very different than it is in the U.S. McDonald’s also changed the local Chinese. They are polite to each other at McDonald’s, they do not spit on the sidewalks outside of McDonald’s, and they have adopted the restaurant as a status symbol of culture and of foreign experience. Beijing residents have shaped the role of McDonald’s and the restaurant has responded to the ideas of what the Chinese think McDonald’s should be.
3. Localization (Not important?): Social processes are inherently spatially structured and deeply embedded in place. McDonald’s become representative of Chinese culture and cater to the needs of Chinese. Instead of fast food, it is a place to hang out and meet people, place of sophistication and modernity. They use locally grown products, there is a Chinese-style family atmosphere where families may have their family dinners, and McDonald’s rely on personal interactions with customers.
4. Localization: Social processes are inherently spatially structured and deeply embedded in place. An example of this is how McDonald’s localizes itself in China by using local foods, creating a family style atmosphere, using children as their primary customers, and relying a lot on personal interactions. This is significant in understanding how both Chinese culture influences McDonalds and how McDonalds influences Chinese culture. Localization allows Globalization to occur while filling a local demand.
Floating population
1. Refers to movement of rural labor to urban areas. Linked to urban citizenship, to the hukou. The workers are not legally able to settle. They are seen by the locals as outsiders, criminal. Urban residents worried about losing their entitlements to: healthcare, transportation system, water, electricity, education.In Guangdong, 21.3 million migrants. 1/3 of all jobs are migrants. 25% of GDP from last 25 years due to migrants. Cities can make money by selling residency, Guangzhou, $1200. In Shanghai 2003, $2,412, 10,000 per year, gone in 6 months. 33% of population rural migrants.
Migrants are perceived as:
Dirty. Migrants associated with the criminal element. Dangerous. Mangliu, liumang. One means floater, associated with migrant. Mangliu. The other, means hoodlum, criminal element. Liumang
2. Floating Population refers to the rural migrants that live and work in coastal cities or large provincial cities for work and money that they cannot get in their villages. In certain cities, such as Guangdong, the floating population might make up a whole third of the workforce. The migrants usually send a good deal of the money they make back home to family and kin in their villages, which allows the families to get the basic things that they need and to put their children through school. These migrants do not have urban citizenship status, though, and so they must pay more to get housing and other basic services. Also, they risk being arrested because of their status. They are viewed as dirty, criminal, and dangerous by urbanites because they do not have an attachment to the city. The two characters that make up the word ‘floater’ can be reversed to say ‘hoodlum,’ and that pretty much sums up their image in the eyes of government officials and urban citizens.
3. Floating Population: The floating population consists of people from rural China who migrate to urban centers to find work. The population is considered floating because they are not officially urban citizens, they have no rights in the city and nowhere to really settle down. Rural citizens go to the cities in order to work and send money back to their families and villages in the countryside. In the case of Guangdong, 25% of the GDP is due to migrant labor. There are many urban prejudices against migrants: criminal and dangerous, dirty, mangliu (floater), Liumang (hoodlum). Again, from the urban citizen perspective, these migrants are stealing utilities such as water and electricity from the urban citizens. There are push/pull factors to attract immigrants to the cities. PUSH: rural poverty, scarcity of cultivable land, surplus of labor, low social status of agricultural work, unfavorable government policies. PULL: higher urban income levels, convenient lifestyles, strong labor demand for urban construction and factory production, excitement of the city.
4. Floating Population--Population of migrant workers who do not have urban hukou and therefore are not allowed to settle in urban areas. They are seen as
drifting, dirty and criminal by urban residents, who fear loss of resources and
jobs to the migrants. In reality the population of floaters in the gigantic
urban area of Shanghai (for example) is around 30%, and they are often willing
to do jobs that urban residents will not do. /
China Price
1. The price that all manufacturers must offer to stay competitive within the marketplace; the price that retailers and manufacturers demand the price to be if they’re not from China. Significant because it puts downward pressure on businesses and lowers the cost of living.The price that buyers demand manufacturers meet at the threat of buyers buying from China, forcing global manufacturers to buy from China or from other manufacturers at Chinese prices.
A race to the bottom. It influences other suppliers, who have to meet the China price to get a contract. The China price sets the negotiating price for everyone. Causes North American manufacturers to become more efficient to stay competitive.
2. The China Price is the price that American suppliers must match in order to be competitive with Chinese suppliers for American business. The China price is much lower than the price that can be offered by most American suppliers because Chinese suppliers have cheaper human labor and a generally more efficient system. American businesses can demand the China price from American suppliers. In order to compete with the China price, American suppliers must find ways to cut costs, which often means more automation and worker layoffs, less profit, and possibly relocation to China where manufacturing is cheaper.
3. China Price: The China Price is what China charges for work and goods because it is able to force down the value of work. It is the price that American suppliers to other American businesses have to match to keep their customers. If manufacturers in other states can’t meet the China price, they loose out to Chinese manufactures because they are bringing the pricing down throughout the world. Chinese economy dictates the market because they are able to drive prices down because of the surplus of labor. It is cheaper to work in manpower than it is to buy machines because the people cost less than the machines and there are more of them. While some workers in the US and elsewhere see this as a negative, consumers are saving. This savings is being passed on by suppliers in the US and elsewhere. China is not the problem- if it didn’t come from China, cheap goods would come from somewhere else.