Regional discrimination in China Due to the scope of human activities are mostly in the same region, the people of other regions are usually not familiar with each other, toward or against a person of a certain regional group is the treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit, such as the Chinese in Peking, Shanghai, Henan, etc.
When outsiders come to this area for which he was not familiar with , the locals will be in accordance with the prejudices of society to explain its character, therefore the potential bias and demonizing. If there are more people of a geographical move to another area, the bias and demonizing the problems will be significantly and become a social problem.[1].
Currently, discrimination based on regional is defined as adverse action against another person, that would not have occurred had the person been of another regional. This is considered a form of prejudice in certain enumerated circumstances in China.[2].
Regional discrimination even exists if there is prejudicial treatment against a person or a group of people who speak a particular dialect.
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A university usually sets a fixed admission quota for each province, with a higher number of students coming from its home province. As the number and quality of universities is very uneven across China, it is argued that people are being discriminated against during the admission process based on their region. For example, compared to Beijing, Henan province has fewer universities per capita. Therefore an applicant in Henan needs a significantly higher score than his Beijing counterpart to get into the same university. However, this is similar to the practise of regional universities in other countries which receive subsidies from regional governments in addition to or in place of those received from national governments.[3].
In recent years, varied admission standards have led some families to relocate for the sole purpose of advancing their children's chances of entering university.[4].
In the early days of China,the application of Civil servant is mainly offer to the local household registration. The residence registration normally appears on their personal identification documents and it led many employers and local governments to discriminate based on the permanent residence of applicants.For example, the Beijing Municipal Government had a hiring policy allowing Beijing non-residents to work in only 12 out of 204 types of jobs.[5].
After Communist Party took power of China mainland,Chinese government began using the family register system to control the movement of people between urban and rural areas. Individuals were broadly categorised as a "rural" or "urban" worker.Urban dwellers enjoyed a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while China's 800 million rural residents were treated as second-class citizens.[6].
The millions of peasants who have since quit the land remain stuck at the margins of urban society, and have been blamed for the rising crime and unemployment. Under pressure from their citizens, city governments impose discriminatory rules. For example, the kids of "Nong Min Gong" (workers who come from counties) are not allowed to enter city schools with their parents, even now they have to live with their grandparents or uncles in order to go to their local hometown schools in counties. They are called home-staying children by Chinese governments. Chinese researchers reported that there are about 130 millions home-staying children without parents year by year.[7].
As a result of unbalanced economic development, unfair discrimination usually follows the specific particular regional stereotyping held by a society.
Discrimination against people from Henan: Because of its largest farmer population in China, huge quantities of rural migrant workers in cities, and continuous emigrating refugees and victims resulted from natural calamities and political tragedies in the 20th century, many of the rural farmers and migrant workers from this area suffered abusive consequences in this privileged state system and snobbish media context.[8]
Discrimination against people in Beijing: Because Peking dwellers enjoy the privileges powered by the central authorities, they are vested interests beneficiaries in the so-called counter-discriminators' eyes, therefore suffering hostilities and disdain from time to time by people from other regions in this country.[9]
Discrimination against people in Shanghai: As the migrants - majority of them come from southeast to southcentral areas of china - flow increasingly into Shanghai, they are often blamed for the rising crime and unemployment. Shanghai Hukou is very important and attractive to those people who lack and chase for it, for it brings much convenience and welfare to those who hold it, consequently, sometimes Shanghai dwellers are also despised and counter-discriminated by people from other regions in this country which is based on privileges and hedged by vested interest groups.[10][11]
In both Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Region of People's Republic of China, there are some people who discriminated against the mainland Chinese, call them as "the mainland Aberdeen", meaning that from the mainland.[12].