by Xinhua Writer Cheng Yunjie
BEIJING, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese government officials and academics have started planning the country's first draft immigration law to better manage the increasing number of immigrants.
Experts on migration were advising the government to learn from experience abroad in regulating immigration, Zhang Jijiao, researcher with the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology under the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told Xinhua.
A liaison meeting was held last year, with the participants from the Ministry of Public Security, the Beijing Law Society, the Chinese People's Public Security University and the CASS, said Zhang.
But the discussions had yet to result in any concrete preparations, Zhang told Xinhua at a global forum on migration Friday.
Unlike Western countries, which have special laws to regulate the management of transnational migrants, regulations only sporadically appeared in Chinese legal instruments concerning entry and exit administration and the use and invitation of foreign investment.
"This reflects how China's transnational migration management has long been focused on the legitimacy of entry and exit out of economic considerations," said Zhang.
"In the long run, however, it is far from enough as migrants into the country also have other demands that need to be addressed, especially relating to ethnic culture and customs, employment and education."
The first and foremost Western experiences worth noting were the classification of transnational migrants into different categories, such as skilled or unskilled workers, skills migration or investor migration, and then to adopt management rules for each category.
"Judging from the history of Western developed countries, inward migration flows often reveal the appeal of a nation. But to have a stronger appeal and competitiveness on the global arena, a nation must properly resolve social and economic issues arising from immigration."
