Migration to China's Northern Frontier, 1953-82

Abstract

POPULATION DISTRIBUTION IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA is an important issue facing Chinese policymakers today. The unbalanced distribution of the population is striking. If a straight line were drawn from Heilongjiang Province in the northeast to Yunnan Province in the south (see Figure 1), the country would be roughly divided in half, and nearly 95 percent of the Chinese population would be concentrated in the eastern portion. Viewed in a long historical perspective, the present pattern of population distribution reflects the southward migration of the Chinese. From the Yellow River valley to the Yangtze, into Sichuan, Guangdong, Vietnam, Thailand, and Southeast Asia, the migration pattern to the south has been a slow, spontaneous movement of people and culture (Fitzgerald, 1972). Redistribution of Han Chinese to the northern border regions is a relatively new phenomenon. In contrast to the historic pattern, it has been the result of government initiatives that sought to relieve cities overburdened by population numbers, to industrialize and form small cities in areas less dense and closer to sources of raw materials, to promote the rustication of urban youths during the Cultural Revolution, and to protect national security interests. The efforts made to encourage migration have often stemmed from clear strategic, economic, and political motivations. For example, promotion of internal migration to the northeast was often indistinguishable from the goal of land reclamation. Since the country's ethnic minorities are concentrated in the border regions, China's government has pursued efforts to assimilate the minority peoples by moving Han Chinese to the border areas.' The Chinese government has long perceived the security of the SinoSoviet border along China's northern frontier to be of particular concern to the nation's territorial integrity.2 Given national security considerations, it is