Despite policy changes, black market for Beijing residency thrives(2)

A Beijing postal enterprise in 2006 offered Fu Xiao, a graduate, a post and promised to give him a hukou. But non-local residents who want to get a Beijing hukou have to get eligibility from both the university and the employer.

"Hukou offerings are rare in the universities and colleges. Sometimes, if you don't have a close relationship with the university leaders, you might not be capable of getting hukou eligibility from the university," Fu said.

Fu, who had failed to build good relationships with the university authorities, eventually failed to get Beijing hukou.

Black market

Given the high demand but low supply, it is not surprising that such a lucrative black market has formed. The hukou are usually obtained via collusion with companies and institutions that have hukou quotas, and some hukou agents make a lot of money by selling the hukou eligibility.

First, the buyer has to pay the money - now around 450,000 yuan - to the agent in advance and find a guarantor institution to guarantee that the buyer can eventually get a Beijing hukou. Then, after waiting for two to three months, the buyers find themselves "employed" by companies who have quotas, for example, a State-owned enterprise) or a Beijing branch of an International company. They then eventually get a Beijing hukou before "quitting" the company.

In these cases, the employment contract is invalid, but the hukou is real. This is how those companies profit by cooperating and selling hukou eligibility to agents.

Previously, the online hukou trade was so pervasive that people could log on to some popular search engines, online platforms, or QQ chat groups to obtain contact numbers of hukou agents and other related information. They discuss related issues freely, such as how to buy hukou and which agents are more trustworthy when buying hukou.

However, in recent years, with the crackdown on the hukou market from the central and local governments, a lot of online platforms have been shut down and the hukou trade has been driven underground. Hukou agents have moved to less popular websites.

Some education and employment service agents even opened a fast channel for their buyers. Any buyer can get an identity as "overseas returnee" after they had spent 120,000 yuan, studied for 12 days and had gotten a degree from a Philippine university. Then, these "overseas returnees" could get a Beijing hukou with the help of the service agents. According to Chinese law, overseas returnees enjoy preferential policies when they return to China in terms of working and getting hukou in big cities.

The lucrative business has also attracted hukou counterfeiters. In 2009, Beijing police smashed a network who used overdue household registration materials and 92 counterfeit Beijing hukou to make over 1 million yuan.

In late August, Beijing police cracked down on a gang who made over 3 million yuan by helping over 80 college graduates to get Beijing hukou. Currently, 13 of the suspects involved have been detained.

Last year, the Ministry of Public Security clamped down on police officials involved in illegal activities regarding hukou, and dozens of policemen were punished.

New fast channel?

On July 30, the State Council issued a notice on household registration system reform, pointing out that middle-scale cities should relax hukou limitations, while large cities should set up a points system to "strictly manage" the population.

In response, the Beijing public security bureau vowed to introduce a points system as soon as possible.

Populous urban areas such as Shanghai, Tianjin and cities in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces have been using a points system to standardize procedures for the migrant population to apply for permanent residence permits.

The system, based on a "residence card" policy, ensures non-local card holders can enjoy similar education and healthcare as local citizens. For instance, in Shanghai, children of permanent residence card holders can sit the gaokao in Shanghai if they meet certain criteria. Non-local citizens in Shanghai who hold residence cards and have paid social security for over seven years can apply for a Shanghai hukou.

Despite the fact the regulations and details of the points system remain unknown; analysts say the incoming system is likely to open new channels for non-local citizens to get hukou.

There has also doubt about how much improvement can be achieved by the implementation of the new system. According to previous experience, some cities put quotas on the number of people who can get a hukou. Most migrants have to wait for a long time.

Yi Peng, chief researcher on urbanization at the Pangu think-tank, said that to manage the population in Beijing, the authorities should abandon the old methods of control over the population relying on the administrative power and allow the population to be determined by the market.

Yi said that the excessive concentration of resources in the capital Beijing should be evenly distributed to other cities and provinces, so that people would follow and scatter to other places.

Hopefully, that would mean Tao Qian would be able to get his son into school.