This article tackles a new phenomenon that will have profound consequences for the future of the international migration order: international migration to the People's Republic of China. For decades, China has had large numbers of foreign students, expatriates, returned overseas Chinese, and ethnic Chinese refugees. However, in the past few years, immigration to China has become much more diverse and numerous. Chinese students and scholars abroad return to China in ever greater numbers. Traders and labor migrants from all over the world are attracted by China's trading opportunities, political stability, and prosperity. Middle-class Koreans, Taiwanese, and Southeast Asians are looking for cheaper living costs and better jobs. European, North American, and Australian university graduates travel to China for employment or to start a business. This article asks to what extent government policy making and the formation of immigrant groups and ethnic relations are informed by unique features of China's late socialist society and government, or alternatively, to what extent they follow patterns similar to established developed immigrant countries in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Policy making usually assumes that the best way to harness migrant remittances for development is by shifting them into the regulated money transfer sector. However, much research evidence concludes that alternative methods are often cheaper and more reliable, accessible and convenient. In this article, we explore this tension between policy objectives and evidence. Based on a review of remittance mechanisms in seven sub‐Saharan African countries, we question the validity of the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ remittances. We conclude that the formalization of remittance systems should not be approached as a regulatory task carried out from the top down, but as a bottom‐up evolutionary and organic process that should be encouraged. We suggest that the current regulatory thrust in this area is likely to be counterproductive, since it risks undermining the many vibrant institutions emerging through the movement of migrants and their money, together with their potential to enhance much needed economic and social development.

Migration from China has fundamentally changed in the past 25 years. Much has been written on the benefits and threats of different types of Chinese migration flows for receiving countries. Almost equally as much has been written about the many forms of Chinese transnationalism and cosmopolitanism brought forth by the new Chinese migration. This article discusses the new types of migratory flows emanating from China, with a focus on ethnic identity formation, competition and cooperation between different migrant Chinese groups, both new and old, in different settings in Europe, North America and Africa. The article concludes with some observations on future changes in the pattern of Chinese migration and their impact on the world migration order. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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At the core of China's rise lies the Chinese Communist Party's ability to reinvent itself and its administration. This article investigates one aspect of the gradual overhaul of administrative institutions, processes, and strategies, namely the increasing prominence of neoliberal ideas emanating from the discipline of public management in the recent emphasis on 'social management' (社会管理) in government rhetoric and action. The article concludes that social management may ultimately entail a corporatist reengineering of Chinese society that allows a considerable degree of pluralism while strengthening the leading role of the Party over society.