People's Republic of China
The People's Republic of China (PRC) maintains a system of residency registration in mainland China known as hukou, by which government permission is needed to formally change one's place of residence. This system effectively controlled internal migration before the 1980s, but subsequent market reforms caused it to collapse as a means of migration control. An estimated 150 to 200 million people are part of the "blind flow" and have unofficially migrated, generally from poor, rural areas to wealthy, urban ones. However, unofficial residents are often denied official services such as education and medical care and are sometimes subject to both social and political discrimination.
Hong Kong and Macau residents need Home Return Permits, issued by the PRC government through the Guangdong Public Security Bureau, to enter mainland China. The system was put in place when Hong Kong and Macau were under British and Portuguese rule. It was retained after their sovereignty was transferred to the PRC in 1997 and 1999, respectively, under the One country, two systems policy. The PRC government denies permit applications from people viewed as a threat to national security. Residents of mainland China wishing to visit Hong Kong or Macau require a Two-way Permit, issued by local Public Security Bureaus in the mainland. The requirement for applying for a travel permit has recently been relaxed under the Individual Visit Scheme for residents of Guangdong province, all the province-level municipalities and a number of other major cities.
Read more about this topic: Internal Passport
Famous quotes containing the words people, republic and/or china:
“Laws can be wrong and laws can be cruel. And the people who live only by the law are both wrong and cruel.”
—Ardel Wray. Mark Robson. Thea (Ellen Drew)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve, I’ve dreamed of havin’ my own things about me. My spinet over there and a table here. My own chairs to rest upon and a dresser over there in that corner, and my own china and pewter shinin’ about me.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)