Moving the Migration Frontier: A Chinese Qiaoxiang Migration Model?
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12407 |
| Author | Minghuan Li,Diana Wong |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
Moving the Migration Frontier: A Chinese
Qiaoxiang Migration Model?
Minghuan Li* and Diana Wong**
ABSTRACT
The New Chinese Migration is frequently contrasted to the earlier 19
th
century mass migra-
tions in terms of its origins (urban vs rural), migrant types (students and professionals vs
coolies) and destinations (developed vs developing countries). A significant component of this
new migration from the PRC however, continues to originate from the qiaoxiang –the emi-
grant-sending areas of the 19
th
century migrations. Based on an extensive review of the litera-
ture on the old and new Chinese migration, as well as several years of fieldwork in the major
rural sending areas or qiaoxiang of China, we examine the continuities between the new qiaox-
iang migration and the old, and propose a qiaoxiang migration model of the entrepreneurial
nature of the migration enterprise to account for the sustained and global character of the
mobility generated.
INTRODUCTION
Prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, sustained emigration from
the two Southeastern coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian had led to the creation of an
extensive Chinese diaspora, more than 90 per cent of whom (circa 10 million) were in Southeast
Asia (Zhuang and Wang, 2009). After a hiatus of 30 years, Chinese emigration re-emerged in the
final two decades of the 20th century to again become a major force in global migration (Tan,
2013). In what has been termed the “New Chinese Migration”(Suryadinata and Goh, 2010; Thunø,
2007), nearly eight million Chinese have left the PRC since emigration restrictions imposed after
1949 have been gradually lifted following the 1978 reforms (Zhuang, 2011).
The chief destinations of these new migrants are no longer to be found primarily in Southeast
Asia, but in the OECD countries of the industrialized West. The new migrants are also far more
likely to be students, professionals and investors drawn from urban centres all over China who
meet the formal entry requirements of these destination countries. It is these new migrants who are
the focus of an ongoing, largely state-driven discourse on China’s new migration (Barabantseva,
2011; Pieke and Spielman, 2013; Tjon, 2009). Notwithstanding this urban bias, unskilled and
poorly-educated peasant migrants from the traditional rural sending provinces of Guangdong, Fujian
and Zhejiang –the so-called qiaoxiang areas –continue to constitute an important part of this new
post-1978 new Chinese migration, and were indeed, its initiators. In this article, we focus on the
enduring Chinese peasant migration from the traditional qiaoxiang areas and its historical continu-
ities.
* Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies in Jinan University, Guangzhou
** New Era University College, Malaysia
doi: 10.1111/imig.12407
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (1) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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