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ABSTRACT: In 2018, the Chinese government established the National Immigration Administration (NIA), the country's first national-level agency dedicated to immigration affairs. Relying on policy analysis and expert interviews, this article examines to what extent the arrival of the NIA and the first years of its operation signal a new state approach to immigration, so far characterised by a narrow focus on exit-entry management and control. While the NIA is normalising a more comprehensive state discourse on immigration, its dependent position within the Chinese bureaucracy and the continued sensitivity of China's young status as an immigrant destination country hinder more fundamental reforms.
KEYWORDS: China, international migration, state reform, globalisation, diversity.
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On 2 April 2018, Chinese officials standing along Beijing's Chang'an Avenue unveiled the name sign for China's first national-level agency dedicated to immigration affairs, the National Immigration Administration (NIA, Guojia yimin guanliju ... State media called the establishment of the agency1, part of a larger government overhaul, an "important milestone" in the Chinese state's attitude towards immigration, which in past decades has combined minimal legislation with a mix of restrictive and laissez faire enforcement.1 However, the NIA's name sign hangs under the ivy-covered gate of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the police authorities who have long dominated China's cautious post-socialist exit-entry regime.2 Next to it hangs the sign of the ExitEntry Administration, previously the primary government organ dealing with immigrants, which continues to exist as an administrative entity under the NIA.3 This institutional embedding made experts suspect that no radical change was to be expected from the NIA, and that responsibility for managing foreign nationals' presence in China would remain divided between the public security authorities and various other government actors.
Over two years into its existence, the NIA has indeed maintained a low profile. It has not published formal planning documents on its announced tasks: drafting and implementing of immigration policies, exitentry management and border control, controlling irregular migration and coordinating international migration cooperation.4 Still, the agency's establishment and the policy debates on the position of foreigners in Chinese society it triggered reflect changes in the Chinese state's approach to immigration. With the NIA, China officially recognises its emerging identity as an immigration destination country. Long marginal...