According to a recent news report in Guangzhou Daily, the official Party newspaper of the southern city of Guangzhou [view on the CMP Media Map], a recent survey of migrant workers in China found that 80 percent of those born before 1980 did not wish to change their rural identity registration, or hukou, in exchange for urban registration. Of those who were willing to change their identity registration, only half said they would agree to relinquish their claims to contract land, or chengbaodi (承包地), in their place of original registration in the countryside. The survey results, if accurate, seem to suggest that many rural migrants still associate the land with security and are unwilling to formally part from it. In this cartoon, posted by the Kunming-based studio Yuan Jiao Man’s Space (圆觉漫时空) to QQ.com, a rural resident holds on tenaciously to his plot of land — even though it is devastated by environmental damage — as a local official tries to yank him away with the promise of a new urban flat. A digger stands behind, suggesting the land is slated for a new development project


David Bandurski

CMP Director

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