Earlier this month, thirteen Chinese newspapers joined forces in appealing to the National People's Congress’ 3,000 delegates for social reforms. They attacked China's hukou (household registration system), which severely limits the access of rural migrant workers to basic services in China’s metropolises. The editorial affirmed, China has endured the bitterness of its household registration system for so long! (…) We hold that individuals are born free, possessing the right to move freely! (…) The system is anachronistic and troubling our great masses to this day. (…) It has reached a point that people’s anger cannot be quelled unless there is reform of the system. Yet it did not take long for one of its authors to be ousted. The Economic Observer’s deputy editor in chief, Zhang Hong, was removed from his position less than a fortnight after the editorial's release, and the paper’s other top editors received harsh warning from the authorities. In response, Zhang released this letter (translated by the WSJ) explaining the reasoning behind the editorial. He said, I have a firm conviction that legislation that disregards the dignity and freedom of the people will ultimately land on the rubbish heap of history. I hope that this system will ultimately be abolished. When the time comes I believe that many people will burst into tears from happiness and run around spreading the news. As a media person, I can only do my utmost to fulfill my duties and obligations, and each of us should also assume our respective duties and obligations. The hukou system was adopted in the late 1950s to control population movement. It ties households and citizens to particular places of residence (both urban and rural), and in so doing determines the social benefits one is eligible for. Many government services, such as housing, education, healthcare and police protection, are tied to one's hukou. To add insult to injury, the chances of changing it from one place to another are slim, as Canadian blogger Don Tai has outlined. Consequently, the system lags behind the mass exodus of rural migrant workers that land in China's cities. Such migrants are limited to their rural hukou, and so they are by definition not eligible for the social benefits enjoyed by their established urban resident neighbours. As a result, they often live in dire conditions, as this chinaSMACK article illustrated. Husunzi from China Study Group explains: For those rural residents who are not thus forced to become urban residents, if they chose to work in urban areas they are (as is well publicised) treated as second-class citizens and detained or sent home as soon as they try to stand up for their interests (just like immigrant workers in the US and many other countries). Therefore, to quote Stan Abrams from China Hearsay, the system “doesn't make sense for China’s modern economy that relies on a more dynamic labour sector.” Zhang Hong and his comrades are not the only ones who feel the system should be reformed. Dissident Yu Jie says, they [government officials] have never thought about the peasants, and the ‘prosperity’ that they designed for China had nothing to do with peasants — more than 1 billion peasants are simply ‘passed over’ lightly by them. C. Custer from ChinaGeeks has also translated the following comments from blogger Wan Xiaodao: If you let rural people become city people, the labor force in the city increases greatly, and the problem of not finding workers would be easily solved. In industrial parks build laborer areas, the houses need not be too good but they must be strong and the prices can’t be too high, no higher than 10,000 RMB […] Haha, it seems I’ve let my imagination run wild. Of course, if things were this way, it would lead to many problems, rural people would vie to be the first to get to the city, and what would we do with no one left to farm the earth? The blogosphere has been ablaze with discussion from all viewpoints over the ramifications of the hukou system. One issue Chinese netizens seem most disgruntled with is education, as the country's hyper-competitive system is made even more challenging for non-local residents who are unable to take advantage of better schools. As one netizen wrote on KDS, Those children being able to study is still better than having them run wild outside, basic elementary school enrollment is simply inadequate, this is a fact, many primary schools have been combined or closed. Moreover, migrant workers’ children have [sic] always been a [social] issue, and no matter what you say, migrant workers have still made a very large contribution to this city. There is no good reason (…) to attack this kind of issue.