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Weaponizing Citizenship in China: Domestic Exclusion and Transnational Expansion
Abstract
This paper offers a critical and historical analysis of the transformation of citizenship in China in a way that challenges both legal orientalism and the overall discourse on Chinese “characteristics” and “exceptionalism”. It aims to uncover how citizenship has been transformed “structurally” (Solinger 1999) as well as through “acts of citizenship” (Jakimow 2012). The paper will therefore not only look at how the One-Party State defines citizenship, uses it as an instrument of repression and population control, but also how citizens themselves can contribute to a new narrative on citizenship and driver of contestation in China. The paper will argue that the transformation of citizenship has contributed to the reinforcement of the fragmented and transnational nature of Chinese citizenship.
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Author and article information
Notes
The 1908 Draft Constitution (钦定宪法大纲) is discussed in Svensson 2002. See also Larson and Chongyi 2011.
By 2014, the number is stated to have risen to 274 million (Tiezzi 2016).
Also referred to as heihu.
A group of public intellectuals protested the expulsion in an open letter invoking their fellow citizenship with the migrant workers affected by the campaign describing them as “our poor relatives from the countryside”. ‘理解、善待、宽容、关爱他们！———关于立即停止粗暴驱赶”低端 人群“、立即开放救助中心的呼吁 (Let us be understanding, kind, tolerant, and caring toward them! – calling for the immediate cessation of the drastic campaign to expel “low end people” and for the immediate opening of a shelter 2017).
It should be noted that neither form of violent incident is unique to the Autonomous Regions or to non-Han citizens as a form of protest.
For a discussion quoting official Weibo posts making these connections, see Samuel 2018.
On the issue of illegality of the Xinjiang centres, see Daum 2018.
Concerns over these “education and conversion” centres in Xinjiang have been raised by the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Australia directly and the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Estonia indirectly.
Mao Zedong defined as ‘the Peoples Enemies’ those who opposed or obstructed the Revolution. Mao Zedong (毛泽东) 1957. Contemporary academics supporting the Party-State lean more towards Carl Schmitt as an intellectual resource to justify the use of enemy conceptions (Schmitt 2007, discussed in Pils 2018b: 257-9 and Sapio 2015).
As reported widely in global media, the interlocutor for the study was detained on suspicion of subverting state power in July 2019 and remains in custody. In order to avoid identifying the interlocutor, we cannot cite the news reports.
Author interview (anonymized) about (平机) by Pils, #1-18-1. The crackdown on civil society has been widely discussed; see e.g. the annual reports by the NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), including the most recent (2017) report.
The discussion here draws on (Pils 2017, esp. part IV).
Pictures on file with author (Pils).
Author interview (anonymized) about the New Citizen Movement (新公民运动) by Pils, #2-18-1.
Forced drugging was used as a novel method to ensure “TV confessions” went smoothly.
Proponents of a new civilizatory conception of tianxia governance include Jiang (2018).