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Poverty in Beijing
From: Cambridge University Press
| By:
Michael Dutton |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
People in the West are inclined to believe that urban poverty is a product of our market-economy systems. But even in China there is a problem with the poor, and drastic actions have been taken to stamp out what the government regards as contrary to the general interest to permit. Michael Dutton of the University of Melbourne, Australia, here recounts the harassment and victimisation experienced by the marginalised in Chinese society. |
 rom 8 November 1995 to 10 January 1996, a small army descended upon a southern suburb of Beijing with a 'final solution' to deal with problems of illegality there. The place in question was known in local parlance as Zhejiang village because of the high density of Zhejiang residents. The 'small army' was all Beijing and all government: 1500 police from fourteen different Beijing units, 1500 armed police from the Beijing number two regiment and 1700 local cadres from the area itself made up this 'strike force', and strike they did. Forcibly evicted were 18,621 people without appropriate residency papers, 9917 houses were demolished and 1645 unlicensed businesses closed. Zhejiang village was demolished and in this act of destruction a warning went out to all illegal 'outsiders'. They were not welcome and would not be tolerated. |
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| Scene from Zhejiang village, Beijing. | |
The scale of the police action, decided at the very highest level by Premier Li Peng himself, would act as a warning to all others who ventured into cities illegally. This is a story told on a more minute scale throughout China every day and, while the full extent of Zhejiang village's tale remains hidden beneath the rubble, something of the tensions and dilemmas that led to this police action can be glimpsed at in this tale of the village. Here, the 'outsiders' tell the 'other side' of the police story. Theirs is an account of harassment, corruption and victimisation by a national police force that looks anything but national, guarding, as it does, the local and quite particular interests of the Beijing government in suppressing the 'floaters' or mangliu of Zhejiang village. |
Zhejiang village was located in the south of Beijing in the Nanwan area, about 5 kilometres from the Qianmen commercial district. It was an area made up of about 26 previous villages and occupied about 26 square kilometres of land. It fell within the Dahongmen or Big Red Gate, police station jurisdictional area. Like the rest of the southern part of Beijing, it was relatively poor and underdeveloped. Traditionally, the southern part of the city was for the poor, as summed up in the old Beijing adage, 'in the east are the wealthy, in the west live the aristocrats and bureaucrats, while in the south there is only poverty' (dongfu xigui nanqiong). It is to this area that the majority of the rural poor have gone, and it is the large numbers of migrants from Zhejiang province that have predominated. They began moving into this area around 1983, renting houses from local peasants and setting up businesses. Rental accommodation was initially cheap, with small houses being rented for 100 to 200 yuan per month ($US12-20). By 1994, this increased to 300 to 400 yuan ($US37-50), and just before the crackdown average rents were somewhere between 500 and 600 yuan per month ($US62-75). Despite the rent hikes, the 'village' grew rapidly over this period. In the ten-year period between 1983 to 1993, the village population reached 28,000 people with about a third being women. The total 'outsider' population peaked at about 30,000 residents which constituted somewhere in the vicinity of 60 per cent of all village residents (interview with senior police, 25 January 1995). A police crackdown and registration drive in July 1995 clarified the situation further. After this, it was discovered that the actual 'floating' population within the village stood at more than 37,000 people (Workers Daily, 19 August 1995). Clearly, with numbers escalating at such a rate more draconian action was thought necessary. The problem was that Zhejiang provincial authorities, who were much more sympathetic to the village population, opposed any harsh action. The central authorities were forced to adjudicate and the result was a huge registration crackdown beginning in November 1995. It resulted in many residents being forcibly repatriated to Zhejiang while others were forced to seek alternative accommodation elsewhere in the city. |
The vast majority of village residents were from Zhejiang and, principally, the Leqing and Yongjia counties of Wenzhou city. Most residents were involved in the rag trade and businesses were usually very small and family based. They were typically sweatshops offering little protection for their workers. It was, however, not just at work that conditions were bad. The massive growth of the 'village' placed huge strains on city resources and amenities. There were few rubbish removal or hygiene services available, nor was there much support in terms of medical, educational or child-care facilities. Indeed, it had been rumoured that medical services were so bad that veterinary doctors had set themselves up as medical doctors in the area. Diseases were said to be a major concern and there was a widespread fear that a major epidemic could spread from the village into the city proper. Crime was also significant. For the government, tax avoidance was another major problem and led to considerable conflict with these 'migrant' residents. Another area of contention was the high proportion of contraband or fake products emanating from village factories. For the residents, other crimes were much more of a worry. Kidnapping, drug use, prostitution and gang activities were very serious problems in this area. Yet the Zhejiang migrant residents appeared to have little faith in the police force whom they regard as corrupt and 'alien', interested only in protecting Beijingers' rights and interests. |
A visit to the village, 21 January 1995
I visited the 'village' before the crackdowns and saw the conditions which had become infamous throughout Beijing. Every backstreet told of neglect. The village quite visibly lacked most amenities taken for granted in the rest of the city. The roads were dirt, there were no drainage facilities, no rubbish collection and the living conditions were squalid and easily the worst in Beijing. On virtually every corner of these dirt streets were posters advertising cures for various sexually transmitted diseases, physical evidence of the claim that the incidence of venereal disease in the village is high. Within the village itself, there was a huge compound entered via three gates that sealed it off from the rest of the area. Within this compound were houses and small sweatshops tightly clustered together. On the back of the entrance gates was a notice indicating that gates would only be opened in the morning at nine and closed at five in the afternoon. On festive occasions, the gates would remain locked. Some passers-by who lived in the compound explained that one gate that was guarded would remain open. It was as though, even within this village of the mangliu, the compound structure of Chinese life was again being unconsciously mimicked. Despite this security, crime was still a problem. When I asked residents whether there was much theft in this area, they laughed. 'There are too many thieves to count', said one. It was in one of these backstreets that I met some residents who told me of village life in more detail. |
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| Zhejiang village, Beijing. | |
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Three men were in a small house rented by one of them who lived there with his wife and child. He said the house (actually, it was one small room of about 8 square metres without heating or water) was owned by a Beijing landlord who rented it to them for 350 yuan ($US44) per month. All three men had been friends in Zhejiang. The first had moved to Beijing in 1987, the others followed in the early 1990s. They moved in search of work. Invited into their house we began to talk about the problems they encountered in Beijing, with Beijingers and with the police. |
On movement
When asked why they came to Beijing, they said to make money. |
Asked if they came directly from Zhejiang, one of them said he first went to Shanghai and only later came to Beijing. Asked why he did not stay in Shanghai, he said that there were too many Zhejiang people already in Shanghai and it was difficult to make a living. |
Income
When asked what business was like, they said it was 'up and down'. The specific details of their financial situation were never made clear. Later on, I visited a small sweatshop filled with Zhejiang people making leather coats and goods--one of the main occupations of the villagers. The average income was estimated to be about 2000 yuan per month ($US250). |
Living together
Asked why they all live together in the village where conditions are deplorable, they said it was partly because of their Zhejiang friendship network and also because they could help each other with their work. They offered their own situation as an example to demonstrate what they meant. For example, those making leather jackets could do it in the village as the leather buttons, collars and even zips they needed are readily at hand and cheap in their friend's factory next door. |
Attitude toward the authorities
When they were asked about Beijing people they had mixed feelings. They said they were not discriminated against but, when we got talking, they pointed out various ways in which, when they first arrived, Beijing people gave them trouble. At that time, Beijing residents, they said, would deliberately put their foot under their tricycles hauling goods and then demand compensation. The police, whom they described without hesitation as really terrible, would always support local Beijing people's claims. The official policy, they said, was one thing, but as this policy was adopted lower down the ladder, the system became more and more arbitrary. They complained, for example, that they would be at home playing mahjong with friends and the police would burst in and harass them. They claimed that, even when families were playing, they were accused of gambling and taken to the station to pay a fine which was never recorded and, therefore, clearly a form of extortion. |
The lianfang (local work units and security groups) were even worse. At night they would grab any youths they discovered and rough them up, asking them if they had weapons and then frisk them for money. If any youth gave them 'lip', they would be given a beating. They said that the worst police in Beijing were those stationed at Big Red Gate (Dahongmen). All the police were local Beijing people and they had a very bad attitude to outsiders. They thought of Zhejiang village as 'their turf' and the Zhejiang people as 'outside invaders'. They treated Zhejiang people very much like second-class citizens. |
Gangs
During our discussions, they also talked about the gang problem in the village. These 'black societies', as they are known in Chinese, were always on the lookout for opportunities to extort money. Hence, if it became known that any villager had a lot of money, they would be paid a visit and the money extorted. If they didn't have any at the time, they would be beaten and forced to sign an IOU in which they would indicate how much they owed the gang and when they would pay up. |
Gangs were also involved in the kidnapping and ransoming of children in order to extort money. Last year, one villager's child was kidnapped and the parents told that if they wanted the child back, they had to give 5000 yuan ($US602). The village had an informal contact network, however, and ransoms could be negotiated through such friendship links. In this example, the parents' friends had some 'contacts' and were able to negotiate with the gang involved. Through these intermediaries, the money demanded was negotiated down. After giving over some money and ten bottles of alcohol and a couple of crates of apples, the child was released. |
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