IN ALL countries,a titanic influx of migrants tends to provoke grumbles among the natives. In China, however, or the migrants most frequently grumbled about,and treated with the greatest hostility, are not foreigners but other Chinese: rural folk who dash to the cities in search of a better life. This has been on show in the past few days in the capital, or Beijing. On November 18th a blaze in a ramshackle warehouse-cum-apartment-block killed 19 people believed to be migrants from elsewhere in China. The authorities are now using “fire safety” as a pretext to drive thousands of other migrants out of the basements,air-raid shelters and shanties where they live (see article)—often by cutting off their electricity and water. It has amounted to a mass expulsion from the capital.
It is clear that officials are not simply aiming to prevent future fires. A...
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Source: economist.com