Chinese and East Asian Migration Governance in Comparative Perspective

Global migration increasingly shapes Chinese politics. African migrants with uncertain residential status have become a familiar sight in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou. Refugee camps line China’s southwestern border and North Korean migrants have long been a problem for border security in China’s North East. China does not provide constitutional protection for refugees of other countries, but cooperates with the UNHCR to care for those who apply for political asylum in China. At the same time, China has initiated a number of schemes to attract high-skilled labor to China, most notably from the Overseas Chinese Community, though it remains almost impossible to obtain Chinese citizenship as a non-Chinese. Under the impact of global migration flows, China has started to revamp its immigration regime and institutionalize new policies pertaining to both low and high-skilled migration. This project compares China’s recent initiatives with the changing immigration regimes in other East Asian countries and entities: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hongkong. Established and emerging China scholars work with experts specializing in other East Asian countries in an interdisciplinary setting to understand China’s evolving immigration management and draw comparisons across the East Asian region.

This project is conducted in cooperation with the Graduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS) at Freie Universität Berlin, to which Prof. Schubert is affiliated as an EINSTEIN FELLOW financially supported by the EINSTEIN-Foundation of the Federal State of Berlin.

(Initial project duration: January 2017 – December 2020)