China's National Resident Identity Card: Identity and Population Management in Transition

Abstract

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