The hukou and dang an are alive and well. (Is Ashcroft jealous?)

China forces internal migration -- again: College grads told, 'Get a job' or end up in Inner Mongolia by Jehangir Pocha. They told students about to graduate that if they did not get jobs by June 30, they would have their papers sent to Inner Mongolia. The papers referred to are

his hukou, or residence permit, and dang an, or personal file. Together they are "China's most insidious tools of social control," says Duan Chen Rong, a professor of demographics at the People's University in Beijing.

A hukou is a residence permit issued to every citizen. It determines where a person can live. "It is like a passport for travel within China," says Duan. The difference is that it is a restricted passport that prevents holders from moving freely within the country.

Issued at birth by local governments, a hukou used to require a person to reside only within the town or district of his or her birth.
...
"China has pursued an economic strategy that has favored the urban industrial sector while exploiting the farm sector," says Kam Wing Chan, a professor of geography at the University of Washington who has studied China's hukou policy for several years. "In small towns and even some medium-sized cities, there are few, if any, benefits attached to the local hukou.

"Having a city hukou is like having EU (European Union) citizenship. Having a rural one is like being a citizen of a Third World country," says Julio Arias, an investment consultant. Such perceptions are creating a "problem of demand and supply," says Duan of the People's University. "The government needs skilled workers to develop backward provinces, but skilled people don't want to go there....

(link via Jeannie Yang)