This study explores the role of China's rural local state-owned and urban state-owned units in its rural-urban migration process. Most studies on Chinese migration have focused on migrants moving from rural to urban areas through informal mechanisms outside of the state's control. They therefore treat the Chinese state as an obstructionist force and dismiss its facilitative role in the migration process. By documenting rural local states' “labor export” strategies and urban state units' employment of millions of peasants, this article provides a corrective to the existing literature. It highlights and explains the state connection in China's rural-urban migration.
Labor is … a special kind of commodity. What we do is to fetch a good price for this special commodity.
Labor bureau official from Laomei county, 1996
If we want efficiency, we have to hire migrant workers.
Party secretary of a state textile factory in Shanghai, 1997
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