Data and Methods

The paper draws on data gathered during fieldwork in Guangzhou (2011–2014), including non-participant observation of panhandlers and their interactions with state authorities in commercial, touristic and religious public areas.Footnote ¹⁵ I define panhandlers as people who ask for money or help as charity while emphasizing their state of misery through their appearance or overall performance. This allows me to differentiate panhandlers from street artists. For interviews, I included people who categorized themselves as “beggars” (qigai 乞丐) or as “begging” (qitao 乞讨). I interviewed 50 people who were either panhandling at the time or had panhandled in the past in Guangzhou, focusing on their motivation, socioeconomic background and experiences of governance and welfare. The state's perspective was additionally analysed through laws and regulations on panhandling from the district to the national level, concentrating on information pertaining particularly to Guangzhou. The study considers Guangzhou's yearbooks and chronicles, examines official announcements and reports, especially those from the Ministry and bureaus of civil affairs in Guangdong, Guangzhou, and the local assistance stations. Chinese academic papers by authors who either cooperate with or work at the assistance stations and/or related social work companies offer a further look into the relevant procedures. The analysis kept in mind the varying political and practical understandings of the Chinese term for “beggar” and the administrative label liulang qitao renyuan 流浪乞讨人员. According to the legal text, the latter phrase refers to “drifting and begging persons” until 2013, and to “vagrants and beggars” in the following years. While translations can affect connotations to some extent, liulang is interpreted as “vagrant” or “drifting” – i.e. from one job or place to another with no purpose.

Governing Visible Poverty Through “Custody and Repatriation”

After 1949, Guangzhou's city leaders accepted Beijing's request to set up “custody centres” (shou-rongsuo 收容所) to deal with refugees, vagrants and the “parasitic population” (jisheng renkou 寄生人口).Footnote ¹⁶ The parasitic population referred to panhandlers, prostitutes and pickpockets, etc. Such people were viewed as victims of the “old society” (jiu shehui 旧社会) – that is, of capitalism, militarism and colonialism – but they were also regarded as a source of instability owing to their habits and “illegitimate professions.”Footnote ¹⁷ According to local chronicles, Guangzhou's custody centres held about 60,000 people from 1951 to 1957.Footnote ¹⁸ The aim was to send them back to their home villages or to “reform” (gaizao 改造) them using practical and ideological education to make them choose a different livelihood.Footnote ¹⁹ When, in 1957, China declared that it had officially eradicated panhandling throughout China (together with prostitution and other “vices”), it was an important milestone for the self-understanding of the young socialist republic. The custody centres were reduced in number and size and were redefined as “custody and repatriation” centres – institutions which became a vital cog in the country's hukou system to control the growth of the urban population and rural-to-urban migration.Footnote ²⁰

In 1980, however, the Ministry of Civil Affairs admitted that the “problem of begging is a social problem that has existed for a very long time. In particular in the past decade of chaos [meaning the Cultural Revolution], after the collapse of the national economy and the weakening of custody and repatriation, begging became a serious phenomenon in some cities.”Footnote ²¹ Two years later, the State Council announced its “Measures of custody and repatriation of urban drifting and begging persons,” followed by the “Execution details” of the Ministries of Civil Affairs and Public Security.Footnote ²² These regulations targeted those who roamed and panhandled in public spaces or who lived on the streets.Footnote ²³ Such people had to be admitted, educated and “immediately sent back to their homes.”Footnote ²⁴

According to the legal text, these measures were to be understood as a form of “relief” (jiuji 救济).Footnote ²⁵ However, in everyday enforcement, they barely served as a support system. According to Wen Changluo 温长洛 from Guangzhou's social relief department (shejiu chu 社救处): “Custody and repatriation mean the administrative management of the society where coercion is primary and support only secondary.”Footnote ²⁶ “Administrative management” in this case referred to a penalty system which punished activities that supposedly disturbed a city's social peace (but which were still outside the scope of criminal law). The police enforced these measures with warnings, fees or detention.Footnote ²⁷ In the case of CR, the police made arrests and then sent detainees off to CR centres, which remained under the responsibility of the bureau of civil affairs.Footnote ²⁸ When issuing further local measures in 1983 and 1985, the governments in Guangdong and Guangzhou broadened their definition of “drifting and begging persons” to include those trying to flee to Hong Kong, prostitutes, “suspicious criminals on the run,” those “who disturb public order” and “other aimlessly wandering persons (mangliu renyuan 盲流人员).”Footnote ²⁹ “Mangliu” was (and still is) a pejorative term for all rural migrants and shows the general interpretation of the law. Guangzhou government specifically targeted rural migrants not connected to an urban danwei 单位 (work unit), without family in the city, or without a stable income.Footnote ³⁰ Anticipating national policy, it referred to this population as sanwu renyuan 三无人员 – people without the three [securities]. In 1991, the State Council followed suit and made official what had long been the custom at the local level with the promulgation of its “Comments on the reform of custody and repatriation,” which extended the remit of CR centres. What was initially designed for beggars was extended to include rural migrants without ID, a permanent residence or form of income in the city.Footnote ³¹ The CR regulations still defined the target group as “drifting and begging persons” but used the term as a pejorative social category to control rural-to-urban migration.

Monetary incentives accompanied a shift in the operation of CR centres. Owing to local budget constraints, the bureau of civil affairs offered minimal financial support, in some cases only paying staff salaries but not running costs. The new policies allowed the centres to issue fees while the overall expenses increased more than sixfold during the 1990s.Footnote ³² Detainees had to pay for their detention, board and lodging, as well as a return ticket to their home villages.Footnote ³³ Those unable to pay had to work in CR-controlled institutions. Moreover, there are reports of arbitrary extortion for deposits, fees and bribery.Footnote ³⁴ Poverty-stricken panhandlers, mostly old and disabled, were hardly targeted in this system as their share of those detained in the centres fell from 20.2 per cent in 1991 to 3.8 per cent in 2000.Footnote ³⁵

As Figure 1 shows, the CR system expanded following the “Comments” of 1991. As rural migrants were considered to be a security threat and a symbol of backwardness in public space, the CR system developed in tune with general city-wide events and campaigns. The two peaks of 131,143 and 190,900 internees in 1998 and 2001 corresponded with the launch of an ambitious “civilized city” campaign and the hosting of the Ninth National Games. While pertinent local institutions celebrated these higher numbers as a sign of success, they continued to push the boundaries of the national regulations. Some political scientists argue that a certain degree of deviance from central policies is inherent in the Chinese state, leading to productive flexibility but also a dangerous loss of control.Footnote ³⁶ The CR system became a general tool for controlling any unwanted segments of the population and was eventually applied to all those found without the required papers, including tourists, travellers in transit and those who had just arrived and who had no opportunity – and no obligation – to be already registered at the police.Footnote ³⁷ Guangdong government criticized Guangzhou's approach several times as “normal migrant workers” constituted the majority of internees.Footnote ³⁸

Figure 1:

Cases Taken to CR Centres (until 2002) and Offered Assistance by the Assistance Stations in Guangzhou (2003 and later)

Source: Guangzhou Yearbook, various years. Some editions (1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2000, 2002) refer to “persons” (ren 人) but the most commonly used category is “cases” (renci 人次).

Guangzhou's broad interpretation of “drifting and begging persons” as well as the arbitrariness and even brutality of its system can be seen in the case of Sun Zhigang 孙志刚. He was a design graduate from Wuhan University of Technology who had just started a job in the city. Following a random check, he was found to be without ID or residence card and so was taken to the police station and then to a CR centre. His friends and employer brought the missing documents, additional recommendations, fees and bribes to the centre – but to no avail. He died from serious injuries received during his detention.Footnote ³⁹ Although not the first to die under such circumstances, Sun's death received the most attention.Footnote ⁴⁰ Pressure from (social) media highlighted the case while lawyers petitioned the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for reform – and succeeded. In June 2003, the 1982 Measures, which had been the basis of migration control since the early reforms, were nullified.Footnote ⁴¹

System Changes in 2003: From Exclusion to Welfare?

The new “Measures for managing and assisting drifting and begging persons living without means in cities” took effect in August 2003.Footnote ⁴² Figure 1 illustrates that Guangzhou government only published statistics for the following months. Moreover, the Figure clearly shows a break and change in the scope of the system. “Drifting and begging persons” were now narrowly defined as homeless people who wander around and panhandle for a living, who are unable to work, who lack support from friends and family and who do not qualify for existing welfare programmes.Footnote ⁴³ The Ministry of Civil Affairs highlighted that those “who wander and beg, but do not meet the above requirements, do not belong to the target group of this welfare programme.”Footnote ⁴⁴ The CR centres were renamed “assistance stations” and continue to remain under the jurisdiction of the local bureau of civil affairs, while the police lost the authority to round up beggars. Officially, the stations are not allowed to take people into custody against their will, and those seeking protection are free to leave the premises anytime. The 2003 “Measures” explicitly prohibit forced labour or the charging of fees.Footnote ⁴⁵

This policy shift corresponded with the Hu–Wen administration's emphasis on humanization (yi ren wei ben 以人为本) and the introduction of new programmes on poverty reduction and the improved treatment of rural migrants in the cities.Footnote ⁴⁶ From 2005 onwards, separate protection centres for street children were set up in line with the new system and, in 2006, forcing others to beg, especially children and minors (under 14 years), became a criminal offence.Footnote ⁴⁷ The assistance stations became part of the expanding social welfare offered to the different poverty groups as defined by the state.Footnote ⁴⁸ The city of Guangzhou has two main stations, in Tianhe 天河 and Luogang 萝岗 districts, as well as branches in Panyu 番禺, Zengcheng 增城, Huadu 花都 and Conghua 从化 districts.Footnote ⁴⁹ Regulations of 2014 broadened their scope to include vagrants and beggars, meaning migrants “without means of subsistence” (zishen wuli jiejue shisu 自身无力解决食宿) who are currently or will in the future end up drifting or panhandling in the city.Footnote ⁵⁰ Comparing the 15 years before and after 2003, the number of people covered by the new classification dropped by more than a half (see Figure 1). For the government and many Chinese researchers, there is a clear shift “from forced CR to loving care.”Footnote ⁵¹

The success of the new system as a welfare institution is, however, limited. A person eligible for assistance can receive medical care, accommodation and food for a maximum of ten days, twice a year. The focus is on short-term emergency care and supporting panhandlers to leave the city. Assistance staff can help eligible people to contact home authorities and relatives and can organize and pay for return tickets.Footnote ⁵² Ignoring the various reasons for panhandling in the first place, reuniting with the family remains the default solution. If a family cannot be located, those in need might be referred to “settlement centres” (anzhi zhongxin 安置中心). But again, settlement in these centres is meant to be temporary and repatriation measures take place at regular intervals according to the motto “low admittance rate, low occupancy rates, high turnover rate” (di zhiliu lü, di anzhi lü, gao zhuanxian lü 低滞留率、低安置率、高周转率).Footnote ⁵³ Thus, the goal of repatriation remains at the core of the assistance stations’ mission.

The offer of assistance from the state is not always wanted by panhandlers. There are reports for Guangzhou and other cities that a significant number refuse even to go to an assistance station.Footnote ⁵⁴ The interviewees in this study emphasized the importance of self-determination and rejected the patriarchal discipline of the stations. The staff in the stations determine the day's timetable – when to get up, when to go to bed and when to eat. Personal belongings are stored when entering the station and alcohol and cigarettes are forbidden.Footnote ⁵⁵ Moreover, the experiences of arbitrary detention before and after 2003 were still raw for my interviewees. Flora Sapio highlights that while “mental illness” is unspecified within the regulations, the diagnosis is used to justify coerced detention.Footnote ⁵⁶ This does not mean that no panhandlers are relying on or even taking advantage of the stations’ services. Some register multiple times to get more food, medical care and transport tickets.Footnote ⁵⁷

For many people engaging in panhandling, however, returning home is not the solution. They have left because their problems cannot be remedied there. Statistically, poverty in China correlates with rural residency, old age, the absence of children and illness.Footnote ⁵⁸ These are the characteristics that describe beggars as well. Of the 50 panhandlers involved with this study, most were between 40 and 70 years old, and 27 were physically disabled or were begging for their disabled parent or child. While physical limitations need not necessarily lead to poverty and panhandling, physical strength and health are important assets in the countryside and for a migrant worker in the city. Take the example of Mr Huang. In his early 30s, Mr Huang had suffered a severe injury to his leg, which meant he was unable to carry heavy goods or stand for hours on end. Lacking the education needed for jobs other than the typical ones open to migrants, such as working in a restaurant, construction site or factory, he had lived on Guangzhou's streets for three years, singing and begging for money and collecting recyclables.Footnote ⁵⁹ Illness not only means the loss of work and income but also the additional cost of treatment. Medical expenses are still the “number one poverty generator”Footnote ⁶⁰ for more than 40 per cent of households below the poverty line.Footnote ⁶¹

Research indicates that most of those who engage in panhandling are rural migrants and thus are not eligible for urban welfare or related benefits owing to the hukou system.Footnote ⁶² Moreover, these people bear witness to China's unequal regional development. Since the Hu–Wen administration, the expansion of dibao, health insurance programmes and the provision of public goods in the countryside have been massively promoted; however, such public goods are often limited by the budgets of each region.Footnote ⁶³ Thus, poorer provinces or counties pay less state support and provide fewer hospitals or retirement homes. To offer another example, 70-year-old Mr Bang was unable to secure a place at his local retirement home as it was poorly funded and overcrowded. He received dibao payments of 60 yuan a month – about half of the national average – which was insufficient to cover the costs of accommodation, food and medicine in his village. Therefore, he went to a prosperous city such as Guangzhou to panhandle. Mr Bang's wife had died several years before and he had no children.Footnote ⁶⁴ In a survey conducted by Lu Guoxian and colleagues, it was found that 77 per cent of the 130 beggars interviewed in Guangzhou and four other cities were unmarried and 46 per cent were childless.Footnote ⁶⁵ These figures are unusually high for China. For the majority of my interviewees, the family was not a pillar of support: parents were deceased or too old, siblings and other relatives had turned their back or could not support the disabled family member on their own low income. Some had lost contact with their families during migration; others had no money to keep in touch or return home. Some did not dare to return home without a successful migration story. They were ashamed, did not want to ask for help or to burden anyone. Mr Gang was a 23-year-old man of restricted growth with five siblings. For him, however, panhandling by singing was a reasonable way to “fight for myself” (ziji fendou 自己奋斗), for his own livelihood and his independence.Footnote ⁶⁶

From Assistance to Control: Criminalizing Panhandlers in Public Space

Since panhandlers do not necessarily go to the assistance stations (and the police no longer have the authority to enforce attendance), the stations’ “mobile assistance teams” (liudong jiuzhu dui 流动救助队) are supposed to patrol the city's public spaces. These teams are only allowed to give out information about the stations’ services, distribute brochures or “counsel and persuade” (quandao 劝导) those defined as panhandlers to accept their help.Footnote ⁶⁷ Local newspapers carry stories about the teams distributing moon cakes in autumn or blankets in winter. However, the teams only play a minor role in the everyday life of beggars, as their numbers are restricted and only increased for specific events. In four years, I only saw them once – during the “hygienic city” campaign. Since 2015, Guangzhou's assistance stations have been buying in the additional services of social enterprises, setting up non-profit organizations and mobilizing “volunteers” (zhiyuanzhe 志愿者) as part of the drive to expand the “civic welfare infrastructure.”Footnote ⁶⁸ In 2019, staff from the 17 social enterprises engaged in assistance stations’ work mainly participated in patrols “to establish a good relationship with vagrants and beggars, and then to persuade them to leave or return to their hometowns.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Moreover, they supported the stations’ efforts to build up a comprehensive file system supplemented by fingerprints and DNA testing, face recognition software and family tracing apps.Footnote ⁷⁰ Both the mobile assistance teams and these social workers approached those who did not qualify, or who did not wish to be “assisted,” which goes against the terms of the 2003 Measures.Footnote ⁷¹

Why do these patrols extend their authority in this way? And if repatriation is ineffective, why does it form the core of the assistance stations’ approach? Guangzhou's local committee of the political consultative conference offers a familiar explanation: “The welfare and management work for drifting and begging persons is not only about social welfare but also about social control.”Footnote ⁷² Similar to the continuing hukou system, “assisting” panhandlers is a means to shape the growth and “quality” (suzhi 素质) of the urban population and to keep out rural poverty and migrants. The stations have not shaken off the legacy of the CR system and still see themselves as a management agency to support the city's economy, security and cleanliness.Footnote ⁷³ Chinese scholars and government actors alike emphasize that beggars reflect badly on a city as they contradict the image of a prosperous metropolis: “Their clothes are worn out, their appearance is dirty, and the contrast with a beautiful urban environment could not be greater.”Footnote ⁷⁴ This is especially true for Guangzhou with its international perspective and its dreams of becoming a global city. A city's image affects on its monetary and political interests, and panhandling might endanger investments as well as political careers. According to Eric Henry, the visibility of panhandlers challenges the very self-understanding of an emerging China, as beggars represent “the cracks within the taken-for-granted doxa of modernity itself.”Footnote ⁷⁵ Additionally, the discussion on welfare eligibility has fuelled the idea of the “professional beggar” (zhiye qigai 职业乞丐). Widely used in academia and the media, political discourses and social work arenas, the term connotes dishonesty and betrayal. It implies the person in need might exaggerate or fake an emergency, harass passersby, be rich or might be organized in a “beggar gang” or otherwise engage in criminal behaviour.Footnote ⁷⁶ To portray beggars as “professional” serves as justification to withhold benevolence and tolerance.

Since the system's changes, Guangzhou city officials have been looking for new ways to approach panhandlers. Xu Zhigang and colleagues explain in a research report for the local government that “whether beggars accept assistance is their freedom of choice, but let us assume their actions influence the city image, then they must accept control by chengguan officers.”Footnote ⁷⁷ Following this logic, panhandling is criminalized by defining related behaviour as an administrative offence: “If you sleep on the street, you affect the daily life of the residents. If you stop cars on the street [to beg], you affect the traffic. If you beg by force, hold passersby, spit on the street, leave rubbish, make a mess of the environment, violate hygiene rules, etc., we will punish you according to the law.”Footnote ⁷⁸ These words, by the-then mayor Zhang Guangning 张广宁, were translated into regulations on public cleanliness and traffic control in 2004 and in subsequent years. These regulations also use catch-all phrases and are aimed at beggars who display “uncivilized behaviour,” “disturb order in public places,”Footnote ⁷⁹ “disturb others,” “affect the cityscape and environment,”Footnote ⁸⁰ or else might affect it.Footnote ⁸¹ The national government supports this approach. In 2009, the Ministry of Civil Affairs defined typical forms of panhandling in China, such as singing or writing on the pavement with chalk, as noise nuisance and environmental pollution.Footnote ⁸² By determining that the visibility of beggars is a problem for the “shirong” 市容 (city landscape), responsibility for their control shifts to the chengguan.Footnote ⁸³ Following the general governance logic on public space, beggars are therefore expelled according to zones and rhythms of prestige and popularity.Footnote ⁸⁴

Guangzhou's local regulations forbid panhandling in areas of tourism, commerce, political representation, transport, and at parks, theatres, schools and hospitals.Footnote ⁸⁵ Those who do not comply with the request to leave are liable to prosecution.Footnote ⁸⁶ Both the chengguan and the police participate in mobile assistance team patrols and increase their cooperation with the assistance stations whenever Guangzhou is under the spotlight. Figure 1 shows the state actors’ efforts approaching beggars in the name of “assistance.” During the preparations for the Asian Games, cases were double the number compared to four years previously and rose to more than 45,000 in 2009; in 2010, 54 per cent of all cases were approached within the one month the Asian Games took place.Footnote ⁸⁷ Moreover, cases of repatriation increased as well, to 18,823 in 2009. One interviewee, Mr Qi, stated that during the Asian Games, patrols had picked him up against his will, given him a train ticket and accompanied him to the platform to ensure his departure.Footnote ⁸⁸ The upward trends of “assistance” in the following years correspond with the “civilized city” campaign (2011) and several stages of the “hygienic city” campaign (2013–2016).

The pandemic occurred at a time when the Guangdong Bureau of Civil Affairs had already been struggling with hygiene standards and treatment within the assistance stations and the settlement centres.Footnote ⁸⁹ Subsequently, those living on the streets were of particular concern in terms of health: “Vagrants and beggars are at high risk of pneumonia from the novel coronavirus infection owing to their homelessness, mobility and low awareness of protection.”Footnote ⁹⁰ The aim was to prevent the spread of the virus within the stations and on the streets of Guangzhou. Several new regulations and guidelines stipulated hygiene measures and staff training, as well as regular testing.Footnote ⁹¹ Those who showed signs of Covid-19 were forced to quarantine in either an assistance station or in guarded hotels. Reports at the district level show how the patrols measured fever, distributed masks, dismantled and disinfected outdoor sleeping arrangements.Footnote ⁹² While patrols in general increased in number and frequency,Footnote ⁹³ chengguan and police patrols were also given the authority to take panhandlers directly to an assistance station.Footnote ⁹⁴ The pressure on beggars increased as they were reportedly “escorted” (husong 护送) by patrols, a phrase which, according to Sapio, is a euphemism for forced removal.Footnote ⁹⁵

In alignment with the Ministry's “special plan,” mentioned above, Guangzhou's assistance stations have continued with their efforts at repatriation and technical surveillance since migration was allowed to resume in mid-2020.Footnote ⁹⁶ Security cameras additionally monitor public space for signs of beggars and homeless people, while panhandling-related behaviour has been criminalized.Footnote ⁹⁷ Collecting trash – an important income source for people living on the streets – was made illegal in February 2020 in the name of cleanliness and hygiene.Footnote ⁹⁸ In effect, the pandemic has served as an additional reason to continue past governance trends of control to make beggars leave the city and its public space.