Hi, cmt Sign Out Help Upgrade to Safer IE8 Yahoo!

Mail

Search Web Search

HOME U.S. BUSINESS WORLD ENTERTAINMENT SPORTS TECH POLITICS SCIENCE HEALTH OPINION MOST POPULAR

World Video Middle East Europe Latin America Africa Asia Canada Australia/Antarctica Kevin Sites

News Search TRENDING NOW: chupacabra unemployment benefits mel gibson carrie underwood the hills

YOUR COMMENTS: Would a burqa ban violate one's right to practice religion? Top Stories

BP begins testing new cap over Gulf oil leak

Beijing starts gating, locking migrant villages AP source: Obama promises to help House
Dems
Buzz up! Afghan attacks kill 8 US troops in 24 hours

Report: CIA paid Iranian scientist $5 million

By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 14, 12:31 pm ET
Report: Amputations without anesthesia in
BEIJING – The government calls it "sealed management." China's NKorea
capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income
Homes lost to foreclosure on track for 1M in 2010
neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification
Accused 'Barefoot Bandit' has US court
papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.
appearance

AP – In this July 8, 2010, photo residents
cycle past on the outside of a locked exit to
a gated village on …
vulnerable migrants.
It's Beijing's latest effort to reduce rising crime often blamed on the More Top Stories »
millions of rural Chinese migrating to cities for work. The capital's
Communist Party secretary wants the approach promoted citywide.
But some state media and experts say the move not only looks bad
but imposes another layer of control on the already stigmatized,

So far, gates have sealed off 16 villages in the sprawling southern suburbs, where migrants are attracted to
cheaper rents and in some villages outnumber permanent residents 10 to one.

"In some ways, this is like the conflict between Americans and illegal immigrants in the States. The local
residents feel threatened by the influx of migrants," Huang Youqin, an associate professor of geography at the
University at Albany in New York who has studied gating and political control in China, said in an e-mail. "The
risk is that the government can control people's private life if it wants to."

The gated villages are the latest indignity for China's migrant workers, who already face limited access to
schooling and government services and are routinely blamed by city folk for rising crime. Used to the hardship
of the farm and the lack of privilege, migrants seem to be taking the new controls in their stride.
sponsored links
Jia Yangui said he accepts the new system as a trade-off for escaping farm work in the northern province of Invest in Gold: Learn How
Shanxi. He arrived in Beijing less than two months ago and lives with a relative in one of the gated villages, Gold Delivered to Your Door. Free Investor Kit.
Dashengzhuang. He sells oily pancakes just inside one of the gates. Since 1960.
Goldline.com/Gold
"Anyway, it's not as strict as before, when we migrants would be detained on the way to the toilet," said Jia's
Earn From 1.40% to 1.70%
relative, a middle-aged woman who gave her family name as Zheng. With GE Capital Corporation. Not An Offer Of
Securities For Sale.
"Sealed management" looks like this: Gates are placed at the street and alley entrances to the villages, which GEInterestPlus.com
are collections of walled compounds sprinkled with shops and outdoor vendors. The gates are locked between
Learn Jim Cramer's Trading Secrets
11 p.m. and 6 a.m., except for one main entrance manned by security guards or police, there to check Look inside a former hedge fund manager's
identification papers. Security guards roam the villages by day. portfolio - for only $1.
www.thestreet.com
"Closing up the village benefits everyone," read one banner which was put up when the first, permanent gated
village was introduced in April.
Featured
But some Chinese question whether problems arising from growing gap between the country's rich and poor
can be fixed with locks and surveillance cameras. 2010 World Cup
Yahoo! Sports' complete coverage
"It's a ridiculous idea!" said Li Wenhua, who does private welfare work with migrant workers in Beijing. "This is
includes blogs and slideshows.
definitely not a good long-term strategy. The government should dig up the in-depth causes of crime and » Yahoo! Sports Blog
improve basic public services such as education and health care to these people."

Crime has been rising steadily over the past two decades, as China moved from state planning to free markets Watch Who Knew?:
and Chinese once locked into set jobs began moving around the country for work. Violent crime in China There's a new way to get the
news.
jumped 10 percent last year, with 5.3 million reported cases of homicide, robbery, and rape, the Chinese » More Who Knew? videos
Academy of Social Sciences reported in February.

"Sealed management" was born in the village of Laosanyu during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when the 100% RSS feed free
government was eager to control its migrant population. The village used it again during the sensitive 60th Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter to
get the top stories.
anniversary of Communist China last year. Officials then reported the idea to township officials, who decided
» Follow @YahooNews here!
to make the practice permanent this year.

"Eighty percent of the permanent residents applauded the practice," said Guo Ruifeng, deputy director of U.S. spy or U.S. prisoner?
Laosanyu's village committee. He didn't say how many migrants approved, though they outnumber the locals The strange case of Shahram
by 7,000 to 700. Amiri.
» More from Time
"Anyway, they should understand that it is all for their safety," he said. Guards only check papers if they see //CURRENTLY BEING USED IN: Pamplona
anything suspicious, he said.

Gating has been an easy and effective way to control population throughout Chinese history, said Huang, the Education
geography professor. In past centuries, some walled cities would impose curfews and close their gates
overnight. In the first decades of communist rule, the desire for top-down organization and control showed in Hot Career Options in Nursing
work-unit compounds, usually guarded and enclosed. If you've thought about
becoming a nurse, there's no
As the economy has grown, privately run gated communities with their own security have emerged in the bettter time than now.
biggest cities, catering to well-to-do Chinese and expatriates, offering upscale houses and facilities like pools
Train For A $60K Career
and gyms.
Do you have what it takes to
land a job that pays $60,000?
The new gated villages in Beijing are very different.

"To put it crudely, gated communities in the city are a way for the upper middle-class and urban rich to keep
out trespassers, whereas gated villages represent a way for the state to 'keep in' or contain the problem of
Updates
'migrant workers' who live in these villages," Pow Choon-Pieu, an assistant professor of geography at the
National University of Singapore who has studied the issue, said in an e-mail. My Connections Everyone

Jiang Zhengqing, a supermarket owner in the gated compound of Laosanyu, told the China Daily newspaper in
May that he doesn't even know if he'll be in business next year because of the drop in customers.

"Before, the streets were crowded with people in the afternoon but now the village is deserted," he said. "I
can't understand why the government has invested such a large amount of money into putting up these
useless fences, rather than repair our dirty public restrooms and bumpy roads."
Sign In
___ to see what your Connections
are up to on Yahoo! News.
Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report. New User? Sign Up

Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook

Buzz up!

More on Asia More...

India, Pakistan to discuss resuming peace process World Video: Selling Barangaroo to China Australia 7
AFP News

Philippine troops search for typhoon missing AFP World Video: Rains trigger landslide in China Reuters

BoJ keeps interest rate, boosts growth forecast AFP World Video: Selling Burangaroo to China Australia 7
News
More »

354 Comments Show: Newest First Sort

 Post a Comment Comments 1 - 10 of 354 First Prev Next Last

Bob Bonez 1 minute ago Report Abuse 0 0

Two wongs can make it white!

Sam 10 minutes ago Report Abuse 1 2

I bet most of the ppl here NEVER been to China, and they read such article( has NO facts to it )
then make their judgment, I'm Australian who is been living in China for the past 3 years and YES
in Beijing itself, I swear to you it's the one of the best city's to live in, very PEACFUL and these
people have turned their life around from nothing to something with in 60 years, if you really care
about HUMAN Rights you should be talking about GAZA instead, stop talking @#$% about China
who are doing better than most western country. for EXAMPLE in Australia we think the US is
most unsafe place to visit, I bet that’s NOT true, so if I believed that I would never ever think about
going there.last there is NO Governmet in this world who si 100%. look at our own back yard, my
country and the US send our troups to Iraq on a FAKE war killing lots and lots of Innocent ppl,,
PEACE

Dennis Mccrary 11 minutes ago Report Abuse 0 0

A little information about China. The migrant workers talked about in the article are not from
outside of China, they come from the country side. China would never allow millions of immigrants,
they have too many people all ready. China is still mostly a peasant country which accounts for all
the cheap labor. The new rich in China made their money by building factories manned by the
peasant migrant workers from the country side. Your shoes made in China were made by slave
labor. They are payed just enough to survive. The Chinese government likes this arrangement, they
are all getting rich, except the worker. This can not last forever. Look for major changes in China in
years to come when the workers realize they are the true power behind the Chinese economy.
 Banmu 12 minutes ago Report Abuse 0 0

Sounds like a reverse of gated community in the US. It's just economics, do whatever is most cost
effective. If you have fewer nice communities, you put gates around them. If you have fewer migrant
workers, you put gates around the migrant workers. The migrant worker is minority in a big city.

Ron 43 minutes ago Report Abuse 3 0

Its a look into the future.Either caused by our ever increasing in power government,or the growing
of gangs,helped along by popular thug music and videos.oh the future looks great!

Mr N 47 minutes ago Report Abuse 2 1

What's all this talk about China's SLAVE labor? It's not slave labor at all. It's simple supply and
demand. They have a billion dirt poor folks from the countryside that want a piece of modern life so
they line up out the door for these so called sweat shop slave jobs. They want to work hard in
order to get what they want. If you don't take the job you got a thousand others waiting to take it
and you can go back to your dirt farm back home and plant rice and vegetables to survive off of.
Supply and demand guys not slavery. these people have a choice to work in these factories or
farm and they're choosing the factories. Don't like it then go home.. it's an opportunity that's being
given to them. Read up on the transpacific railroad and the role the Chinese laborers played in it
and you'll see that this is how it's always been. The Chinese simply work hard for their future but
we are lazy and prefer to use mexican's for our dirty work instead the Chinese just tap into their
own people for their labor force to build their country. Slaves... HAH

N Atlantic Beach 58 minutes ago Report Abuse 4 5

There is no freedom of speech in America because you can be sued for libel.

M.J. 1 hour ago Report Abuse 5 4

People can say whatever they want about China really, but the fact is 20 years ago nobody wanted
to live in China compared with the US, today at least there are alot of people willingly go back to
China, and there are millions of foriegn nationals permenently living in China today, and increasing,
so all the bashing cant really change the fact. China are steadily moving forward, fixing its
problems, while americans are still standing still in the same place, it will come a day when china
will catch up and surpass, by the looks of it, wont even take too long.

Keithstone 1 hour ago Report Abuse 6 2

I like to stroke my johnson and spank my monkey.

Johnny 1 hour ago Report Abuse 2 0

china version of gestapo

Comments 1 - 10 of 354 First Prev Next Last

Post a Comment
Sign in to post a comment, or Sign up for a free account.

Most Viewed - World Daily Features Elsewhere on the Web

Post-Cold War, darker side of Time.com: Iran's Shahram Amiri:
spy game moves east AP The U.S. Denies Kidnap
Allegations
Report: Amputations without
anesthesia in NKorea AP McClatchy Newspapers: How did
All Comics » Iranian nuclear scientist end up in
Beijing starts gating, locking
Washington?
migrant villages AP
Opinions & Editorials: Diverse views on
news from the right, left, and center. NPR: Spain's Boom To Bust
3 bodies found hanging from
Illustrates Euro Dilemma
bridges in Mexico AP All Opinion »
Mexican president replaces top
security official AP
All Most Viewed »
 Home U.S. Business World Entertainment Sports Tech Politics Science Health Travel Most Popular Odd News Opinion

NEWS SERVICES RSS News Alerts Weather Alerts Site Map Help Feedback

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written
authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Questions or Comments Privacy Policy About Our Ads Terms of Service Copyright/IP Policy