The key to reforming the household registration system lies in handling three major contradictions well

The State Council's "Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration System" is a top-level design for household registration system reform. From the perspective of the reform roadmap, it must be supported by the "Residence Permit Management Measures" to be issued within the year; from the perspective of the reform timetable, transferring 100 million agricultural population to cities and towns by 2020 is not only a large total, but the progress and specific details in each locality are also very important. In my view, the implementation of the "Opinions" will face three pairs of contradictions, all involving the issue of equalization of public services, and whether they are resolved well or not directly relates to the success or failure of household registration system reform.

Whether farmers can truly make an independent choice between urban interests and rural interests

The first is whether farmers can truly make an independent choice between urban interests and rural interests. According to the requirements of the "Opinions", at the present stage, withdrawal from land contractual management rights, homestead use rights, and rights to collective income distribution must not be used as conditions for farmers to settle in cities. These "three rights" are rights protected by the "Property Law" and other laws, and whether farmers who settle in cities withdraw from the "three rights" for compensation should fully respect the wishes of farmers.

This raises a question: can farmers who settle in cities simultaneously enjoy both urban interests and rural interests? Previously, practices such as "land for social security" were implemented in Chongqing and other places, and a three-year transition period was also provided, meaning that during the transition period one could give up settling in the city and return to rural areas. But if giving up the "three rights" is not made a condition for settling in cities, then not only do farmers who move to cities have a dual identity, but it is also unfair to urban residents. This is because farmers who settle in cities can enjoy public services and social welfare carried by household registration or residence permits, such as children's schooling, medical insurance, support for entrepreneurship and employment, housing security, pension insurance, and social assistance, while still retaining the protection and returns of the "three rights". This may mean going from one extreme to another, and it is also not conducive to the economical and intensive use of rural land.

I believe that setting a transition period is still relatively realistic. For example, within three years one may enjoy both urban interests and rural interests, but after three years a choice must be made, and the premise of possessing one kind of interest is giving up the other. Of course, the transfer of the "three rights" can be compensated, so that farmers who settle in cities can have the "first pot of gold" for buying a house, settling down, starting a business, and so on, and the vacated "three rights" can be circulated or transferred within a certain scope in rural areas.

The connection and difference between the two identity systems of household registration and residence permits

The second is the connection and difference between the two identity systems of household registration and residence permits. The "Opinions" propose that, with residence permits as the carrier, a mechanism for providing basic public services linked to conditions such as years of residence should be established and improved. Obviously, the difference between a household registration booklet and a residence permit reflects how much resident identity treatment, public services, and social welfare one enjoys, rather than simply being as general as "equalization of social services" or "citizenized treatment". In a certain sense, the design of the residence permit means that before obtaining the complete public services and social welfare embodied by household registration, there is also a level or stage of partially enjoying these citizenized treatments.

It is said that establishing the residence permit system is a transitional institutional arrangement, mainly to establish and improve a mechanism for providing basic public services linked to conditions such as years of residence, and to solve the practical difficulties of the agricultural transferred population and other permanent resident populations who have already found employment and lived in cities and towns but have not yet obtained household registration in areas such as education, employment, medical care, elderly care, and housing security. At present, the Ministry of Public Security has already formed a draft of the "Residence Permit Management Measures", which will be issued this year.

In my view, the residence permit system, as a "transitional institutional arrangement", will exist for a fairly long period. This is because our country cannot quickly narrow the urban-rural gap, and many large cities are also unable to bear an excessive influx of population, let alone the fact that some migrant workers very likely do not plan to live permanently in cities and towns.

Guangdong was the earliest in the country to implement the residence permit system, starting in 2010. Over 4 years, 48.72 million residence permits were issued, while the province had only 30 million floating population. If we consider that some people did not apply for residence permits, it can be judged that a considerable portion of the floating population left Guangdong. In other words, temporary residence permits were changed to residence permits, but some floating population were still "temporarily residing". And these "temporary residents", or "urban entrants without household registration" who are not yet sure whether they want to obtain household registration, also need some public services and social welfare, especially social services such as children's schooling, public rental housing, and entry and exit. This is the function that residence permits should play.

The contradiction between people moving to large cities and policies encouraging the development of small towns

The third is the contradiction between people moving to large cities and policies encouraging the development of small towns. In accordance with the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, the "Opinions" further clearly pointed out the positioning of four types of cities. The vivid formulation is: small towns have "basically no threshold", medium-sized cities have a "relatively low threshold", large cities "lower the threshold", and mega-cities establish and improve a "points-based household registration" system.

The problem is that what migrant workers rush to are mega-cities and large cities, which is exactly the opposite of the direction guided by household registration system reform. Statistics show that half of the country's migrant workers are concentrated in ten major cities, and one quarter of them are concentrated in the top four cities. According to the communique of the National Bureau of Statistics, the total number of migrant workers nationwide is 269 million, of whom 166 million are migrant workers working outside their hometowns. Theoretically, only those 100 million local migrant workers may settle in cities and towns as urban residents. Of course, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the central towns of the Pearl River Delta also have strict restrictions on household registration, while small towns in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong have difficulty attracting outside migrant workers to register as households.

Fundamentally, this involves both the issue of narrowing regional disparities and the issue of transferring resources such as medical care, education, and culture to small and medium-sized cities. Just think about why small and medium-sized towns in the United States can attract people: it is because the urban-rural gap is not large, and many good universities and famous hospitals are built in small cities. This involves the issue of readjusting the path of urbanization in our country.