China: la inmigración interna

En Estados Unidos, el problema de la inmigración ilegal viene siendo motivo de una enconada, difícil discusión, con la sociedad norteamericana dividida en dos en cuanto a cómo resolverla. La solución de este problema es uno de los dos grandes compromisos encarados por Obama, junto con la salud. Brett Edkins, en Slate, dedica una nota el 14 de mayo a comparar el caso norteamericano con el chino. Una comparación con algunas analogías, pero con grandes diferencias, que se desprenden de su relato, sin hablar de toda la información conocida sobre las distintas características sociales involucradas.
Edkin describe lo que llama la mayor violación de derechos humanos en China: los derechos de los migrantes internos, la sociedad campesina que emigra a las ciudades en busca de trabajo; una gran masa de doscientos millones de personas, capaces de desequilibrar completamente el país. El punto central de la discriminación lo constituye el sistema de control y seguimiento del lugar de residencia de las personas, que facilita el resto de las injusticias económicas asociadas (menores ingresos, desconocimiento de derechos de salud y educación, etc):

Chinese newspapers, "Netizens," and even Communist officials are calling for reforms. Their main target is China's 50-year-old household registration, or hukou, system. Began as part of China's state-run economy, the hukou system labels individuals as "rural" or "urban," indicating their proper place of residence and binding laborers to the land. Today, rural residents are permitted to travel to the cities, but they can still be fined or forcibly returned home if they are caught working or living outside their designated hukou. Obtaining a temporary urban-residency permit from the police is beyond the means of most migrants, requiring a fee and employment documentation. Permanently changing one's hukou by attending university or joining the military or the Communist Party is similarly out of reach.

Life for a city dweller with a rural hukou is difficult. Their hukou denies them urban welfare and access to public housing. It also excludes them from publicly funded health-insurance schemes. Since fewer than 3 percent can afford health insurance, most avoid medical care altogether. City judges often impose harsher sentences on rural migrants, and employers frequently withhold wages, knowing undocumented workers cannot complain to police without risking exposure.

Even more devastating, children inherit their parents' rural status. By demanding "donation" fees and proper work papers, public schools deny education to more than 30 million migrant children, in violation of Chinese law. Many migrant families now rely on unauthorized, poor-quality private schools.

Un sistema feudal de control de la población implantado con el inicio del gobierno comunista; probablemente no muy distinto de lo que fuera de uso común hasta su llegada, pero sin duda ajeno al siglo veinte occidental. Un trato discriminatorio entre ciudadanos reconocidos del mismo país, similar al sistema de castas indú. Un sistema del que "no se debe hablar", en el marco de las fábulas que visten la dominación totalitaria china.
El desequilibrio social es el talón de Aquiles de China: algo que se hará presente en la medida en que el país incermenta su fortaleza económica, y que constituye el principal aviso de que falta mucho tiempo para que China supere a Estados Unidos como potencia hegemónica. Han sido los mismos chinos quienes han usado siempre la figura de "gigantes con pies de barro", o "tigres de papel". Un país con tales diferencias, por mucho tiempo tendrá pies de barro.
Edkin comenta las alternativas manejadas, al interior de la sociedad china:

For hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens, reform of the hukou system would mean higher-paying and safer jobs, housing, police protection, access to health care and welfare, and education for their children. And reform is now closer than ever. China's leaders are taking an acute interest, fearing that growing inequality could trigger social unrest and threaten their hold on power. Chinese city-dwellers are three times wealthier than their rural counterparts—the most lopsided urban-rural inequality in the world.

Abolishing the hukou system altogether to allow unconstrained freedom of movement from rural to urban areas may seem the simplest way to reform, but many fear that migrants would flood China's cities. Mass migration could bust municipal budgets—costing an estimated $242 billion over five years as new residents qualify for public housing, education, and welfare. Costs forced the city of Zhuhai to end its attempt at reform in April 2008.

Chinese scholars have proposed other options. Hukou reform could be done gradually, granting urban hukou to wealthier or skilled migrants at first, then expanding to reach poorer residents in much the same way that U.S. immigration laws favor educated and skilled green-card applicants. Shanghai recently took this approach, granting urban hukou to residents who had contributed to the city's welfare system for seven years. To offset the costs of public housing, cities might alter property rules so migrants can develop collective housing. Small or medium-sized cities could undertake pilot reforms to try alternative approaches, much as they did in the 1990s.

The Chinese government is committed to reform, though it remains vague on specifics. In 2006, the Public Security Ministry proposed allowing migrants to transfer their hukou to urban areas, and this year the central committee issued a policy paper calling for fundamental hukou reform and greater integration of rural and urban populations. Large cities are becoming more receptive as well. In March, Beijing officials publicly pledged to educate the city's 300,000 rural hukou children after parents petitioned the city government.

Cualquiera sea la solución, tendrá costos y derivaciones insospechables en este momento.
Edkin piensa en el propio caso estadounidense, abogando por una salida humanitaria que responda a la historia del país. Indudablemente el impacto que tendrá el reconocimiento de sus inmigrantes será mucho menor que el que tendrá el suyo para China.