UCLA UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal Title China's National Resident Identity Card: Identity and Population Management in Transition Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1h93p0kn Journal UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal, 23(2) Author Keane, Merril Publication Date 2006 DOI 10.5070/P8232022183 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California CHINA'S NATIONAL RESIDENT IDENTITY CARD: IDENTITY AND POPULATION MANAGEMENT IN TRANSITION Merril Keane* INTRODUCTION On June 28, 2003, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's highest legislative body, promulgated the Resident Identity Card Law (hereinafter, the "2003 ID Card Law"). The 2003 ID Card Law represents another step in the reform of China's hukou (household registration) system. China's modern hukou system, by which the citizenry is regis- tered with the government according to "household," has deep roots in China's tradition of social governance extending back over two thousand years.1 The hukou system is a powerful method of defining an individual's status in Chinese society, asso- ciating a person with a certain place and group of people (e.g., family), and conferring benefits and restrictions on citizens ac- cording to hukou status.2 Unlike the ancient system, which was developed to implement taxation and conscription, the modern hukou system is used to effect control over internal migration and management of certain classes of "targeted people,"'3 and more recently, to provide Chinese citizens with convenient means of proving their identity.4 * UCLA School of Law, Juris Doctor Candidate (May 2006). Many thanks to Lynn LoPucki, Randall Peerenboom, Nancy Tomasko, and Wang Bin for their help- ful comments and guidance. 1. FEI-LING WANG, ORGANIZING THROUGH DIVISION AND EXCLUSION: CHINA'S HUKOU SYSTEM 34-35 (2005). 2. Tiejun Cheng & Mark Seldon, The Origins and Social Consequences of China's Hukou System, 139 CHINA Q. 644, 644 (1994) (describing how urban hukou holders have access to certain government-provided benefits that rural hukou hold- ers do not). 3. WANG, supra note 1, at 35, 49. The "targeted people" classification will be discussed in more detail below. 4. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo jumin shenfenzheng tiaoli [Resident Iden- tity Card Regulations] (promulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat'l People's Cong., Sept. 6, 1985, effective Sept. 6, 1985) (P.R.C.) (hereinafter, the "1985 ID Regula- tions") (One of the goals of the identity card, as set forth in Article 1 of the 1985 ID Regulations, is to "prove the identity of residents."). Prior to the enactment of the 2006] CHINA'S NATIONAL RESIDENT IDENTITY CARD 213 As China modernizes and its population becomes more mo- bile, the hukou system is gradually transforming from a collec- tive-based system that registers and manages citizens in groups, to a system oriented around the individual. The resident identity card system, first implemented in 1985 and modified by the 2003 ID Card Law, is the basis for this transformation.5 While the hukou system, especially as it relates to migration control, has been extensively explored in recent scholarship, 6 the function of the resident identity card within this system has been largely glossed over. I hope to show that, with the enactment of the 2003 ID Card Law, identity cards are no longer "of marginal impor- tance in Chinese life,"'7 and to elaborate on Michael Dutton's claim that identity cards "augment the household registration system by offering a convenient means by which to carry out many of the non-territorially based policing functions of the '8 [hukou system]." 1985 ID Regulations, Chinese citizens traveling away from their homes used a vari- ety of non-standardized methods to prove identity, including letters of introduction and work unit identity cards. MICHAEL R. DUTTON, POLICING AND PUNISHMENT IN CHINA: FROM PATRIARCHY TO "THE PEOPLE" 334-35 (1992). 5. See, e.g., Tmgting Zhang, Guest Editor's Introduction, CHINESE L. AND GOV'T, May-June 2001, at 8 ("[The identity card's] use has changed the unit of ad- ministration of registration. In the prereform period, the unit was one book per household in cities and towns, and one book per village in the countryside. Today every person has an ID card regardless of his hukou status."). 6. WANG, supra note 1; Hayden Windrow & Anik Guha, The Hukou System, Migrant Workers, and State Power in the People's Republic of China, 3 Nw. U. J. INT'L HUM. RTs. 3 (2005); Fei-Ling Wang, Research Report: Reformed Migration Controland New Targeted People: China'sHukou System in the 2000s, 177 CHINA Q. 115 (2004); Zhu Lijiang, The Hukou System of the People's Republic of China: A Critical Appraisal under International Standards of Internal Movement and Resi- dence, 2 CHINESE J. INT'L L. 519 (2003); Xin Frank He, Regulating Rural-Urban Migrants in Beijing: Institutional Conflict and Ineffective Campaigns, 39 STAN. J. INT'L L. 177 (2003); Xin Frank He, Sporadic Law Enforcement Campaigns as a Means of Social Control: A Case Study from a Rural-Urban Migrant Enclave in Beij- ing, 17 COLUM. J. ASIAN L. 121 (2003); CHINESE L. & GOV'T, May-June 2001; Ling Li, Note: Towards a More Civil Society: Mingong and Expanding Social Space in Reform-Era China, 33 COLUM. HUM. RTs. L. REV. 149 (2001); JIANHONG Liu, LEN- ING ZHANG & STEVEN F. MESSNER, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A CHANGING CHINA (2001); Kam Wing Chan & Li Zhang, The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes, 160 CHINA Q. 818 (1999); DELIA DAVIN, INTERNAL MIGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA (1999); DOROTHY SOL- INGER, CONTESTING CITIZENSHIP IN URBAN CHINA: PEASANT MIGRANTS, THE STATE, AND THE LOGIC OF THE MARKET (1999); Linda Wong & Huen Wai-Po, Re- forming the Household Registration System: A Preliminary Glimpse of the Blue Chop Household Registration System in Shanghai and Shenzhen, 32 INT'L MIGRATION REV. 974 (1998); B0RGE BAKKEN, MIGRATION IN CHINA (1998); Cheng & Seldon, supra note 2; MICHAEL R. DUrON, POLICING AND PUNISHMENT IN CHINA: FROM PATRIARCHY TO "THE PEOPLE" (1992). 7. DAVIN, supra note 6, at 46. 8. DUTTON, supra note 6, at 334. PACIFIC BASIN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 23:212 The recent changes in the resident identity card regime have two primary functions, each stemming from the identity card's role in the greater hukou system, and both of which are impor- tant to China's continued stability. First, the new identity card offers a standardized and more reliable method for citizens to prove their identity, which will benefit individuals, businesses, and, ultimately, the Chinese economy. Second, the new identity card represents another step away from the use of the hukou sys- tem to regulate internal migration and toward the use of hukou information primarily for public safety policing purposes. How- ever, without adequate safeguards against arbitrary police use of identity information, the new identity card system could lead to police abuses. Part I of this paper provides an overview of the hukou sys- tem of identity information, examining how an identity is estab- lished within the system and what personal information is ultimately stored there. Part II explores the new resident iden- tity card regime and how it facilitates determination of identity in a society rife with identity fraud. Part III focuses on the public security functions of the hukou system and discusses how the new identity card regime represents further progression toward the use of hukou information for policing purposes. From this analysis, I conclude that the resident identity card's use in con- firming identities can help businesses and individuals in China more confidently undertake daily economic activities. Further- more, while the new identity card regime may consolidate con- trol and facilitate police access to identity information, its attempts to curb police discretion may be effective. It is too soon to tell whether the new identity cards will exacerbate police abuses. I. THE HUKOU SYSTEM OF IDENTITY REGISTRATION: PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTION AND OVERSIGHT The modern hukou system is embodied in the 1958 Hukou Registration Regulations and the 2003 ID Card Law. It is over- seen by the Ministry of Public Security and implemented by local public security organs (generally police stations, or paichusuo) across the country. 9 Since its introduction, the hukou system has 9. Guo Wu Yuan guanyu huanfa di'erdai jumin shenfenzheng youguan wenti de pifu [Official Response by the State Council on Problems Associated with Changing Over to Second Generation Resident Identity Cards] (promulgated by the State Council, June 13, 2001, effective June 13, 2001) (P.R.C.) ("The Ministry of Public Security must strengthen leadership, strictly oversee, and formulate specific implementation plans .... [and] make timely reports... to the State Council"); Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo hukou dengji tiaoli [Regulations on Hukou Regis- 2006] CHINA'S NATIONAL RESIDENT IDENTITY CARD 215 been the Chinese government's primary means of collecting and managing identity information.10 Two other purposes of the hukou system, which are discussed infra in Part III, are to control internal migration and to manage "targeted people," a classifica- tion that includes people suspected of endangering national se- curity or engaging in criminal activity, violent individuals, ex- convicts, and narcotics users." Although the system is governed2 predominantly by internal directives unavailable to the public,' recent scholarship provides a great deal of insight into its inner 3 workings.' Under the hukou system, every Chinese citizen is required to register for a permanent hukou 14 and a resident identity card.1 5 Essentially, a permanent hukou is "where one officially has residence" in the eyes of the Chinese government.' 6 A per- son's place of permanent hukou registration is not necessarily the place in which he or she actually resides.