1.3 Precedent Studies
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Diaozhuang Migration
In the 90s, the government began to help the residents of the southern mountainous region to alleviate poverty. With limited resources, the government implemented a migration project, by which people move voluntarily, they have home on both their origin and resettlement town where they may come and go freely. This style of migration is unique to Ningxia and is called ‘Diaozhuang’, suspended village in direct translation. It aimed to reach mutual understanding among people. ‘If we had known what it was like, we wouldn’t have moved here,’ said Ma Shiliang, a village doctor whose family was among some 7000 Hui Muslim whom the Chinese government had brought to this place from their water-scarce lands in the country’s Northwest. Officials promised they will get a prosperous life here in the new settlement. These people once herded sheep and goats over grassland now are uncertain of their future. In the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Resettlement Project, the world’s largest
environmental migrant resettlement project, 1.14 million residents have been displaced to Miaomiao Lake, where they struggle to establish a new livelihood. Settlers were asked to pay a $2100 resettlement fee and was promised a plot of land to farm as the families left behind plentiful fields and animals. But those who received plots ended up having to lease them to an agriculture company as the crop is not yielding. Some who have chosen to stay behind, defying the government order to resettle were published by denying them water access and subsides for raising sheep and cattle. A third of Ningxia’s population are Hui Muslim. Some Western scholars say that Chinese resettlement policies are aiming to control ethnic minority populations, and that officials may cite environmental reasons as a cover. The village is not well equipped with houses, roads and schools and most importantly, water facility. These people is struggling to live, they do not know how to plant crops on these infertile land. They will soon have to move again, from ecological migrant to labour migrant, finding a job in the city as cleaner or security guards in order to make a living.
Image 1.3.7 Settlers in Tengger Desert, China. The New York Times. 2016