Reforms to China’s hukou system will not help migrants much
Big cities are still reluctant to give them social benefits
China’s netizens are usually cheerleaders for nationalist causes. So the recent showering of praise on Vietnam by some of them has been striking. A bout of it occurred last month when exaggerated news circulated on Chinese social media that Vietnam was preparing to abolish its ho khau system of household registration, which makes it difficult for people from the countryside to obtain social benefits in cities. “Vietnam has completely surpassed China,” wrote one commenter on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. “The future star of Asia”, enthused another.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “The widening gap”
From the September 24th 2022 edition
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