BRIEFING: "China's economy: A great migration into the unknown; Global recession is hitting China's workers hard," The Economist, 31 January 2009.WORLD: "Return of jobless migrants strains China," by Calum MacLeod, USA Today, 17 February 2009.
ASIA: "China's Job Solution: Unemployed college graduates compete for state positions in the countryside," by Maureen Fan, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 9-15 February 2009.
Amidst China's stunning urbanization wave is this large chunk of migrant population that swishes back and forth between urban centers and origin villages.
We have it much easier: our economic system's rural poor are primarily located south of the Rio Grande, with their swishing back and forth timing our waves of migrant workers--both legal and illegal. When we don't want them anymore, we can drive them out of our country and build a fence. China has no such luxury: it's Latin America is already inside its national borders, thus the political fixation on "stability" in the rural countryside during this economic downturn.
Upshot?
China is incentivized to dramatically up-tick its efforts at the development of its West, even to the point of encouraging college grads to head West and land government jobs. Sooners, to your wagons, as your Peace Corps-like post-grad experience will see you extending Beijing's government-building efforts within its own borders.
Naturally, the locals will be suspicious of such carpet-bagging Easterners showing up, especially when jobs are very tight, so expect all the usual tensions involved with frontier-integration.
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