Publication Type

Book Chapter

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2025

Abstract

While China has observed an increasing influx of foreign nationals, a notable phenomenon involves Chinese emigrants opting for return migration to reestablish themselves in their country of origin. The process of emigrants returning to China, referred to as “return and resettlement” (huiguo dingju 回国定居) in official terminology, however, is not automatic. Emigrant returnees must fulfill a set of selective and documentary criteria, implying that only economically affluent and duly documented migrants are permitted to resettle in China. Through a comprehensive review of national policies and an analysis of local practices in a diaspora hometown, this chapter argues that the hukou system, ostensibly designed for domestic governance, operates similarly to international immigration regimes by selectively determining and documenting the return of Chinese nationals. I caution against viewing the right to return as an inherent and static status, unaltered in a state's nationals. Instead of a unidirectional and irreversible entitlement, emigrants’ right to return is molded by the state through a constellation of fluctuating legal codifications and exploitative bureaucratic practices.

Keywords

Return, Emigrants, Hukou, Citizenship, Qiaoxiang

Discipline

Asian Studies | Demography, Population, and Ecology | Politics and Social Change

Publication

Handbook on Migration to China

Editor

Heidi Østbø Haugen & Bingyu Wang

First Page

87

Last Page

96

ISBN

9781035332694

Identifier

10.4337/9781035332700.00012

Publisher

Edward Elgar

City or Country

Cheltenham

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035332700.00012

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