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外 文 翻 譯 原文 : Guest Editor’s Introduction Zhangtingting The Household Registration System (hukou) was a pivotal institution of political and social control in Maoist China. For more than twenty years, people under this system had no freedom to relocate. Ruralurban migration was particularly sanctioned. Though unintended, the incursion of economic reform in the late 1970s set in motion a chain of consequences that began the erosion of the hukou system. This issue of Chinese Law and Government presents translations of he selected government regulations, directives, and circulars regarding the administration of the hukou system before and after the reform. PartI contains the official definitions of the hukourelated concepts as well as an official explanation of the registration procedures. Part II includes two regulations that present a macropicture of the framework of hukou registration before the reform: “Registration of the People’s Republic of China on Residence Registration” of 1958 and the “Circular Concerning the Institutions of Residence Registration Transfer Procedures for Transfered Cadres and Workers.” Part III introduces new regulations created to cope with the increasing population mobility since the reform, including “Regulations on Residence Identity Cards of the People’s Republic of China,” “Regulations on Applications for Temporary Residence Cards,” “Regulations on Public Security Management over Rented and Leased Housing,” to name a few. These regulations shed light on the changes that have occurred in the hukou system and its future. To usher in the main body of this issue, I shall briefly examine, in this introduction, the following questions: How did the hukou system e into being? How was it enforced during the Maoist era? What political, social, and economic forces brought about the changes in the hukou system? And what is the future of the hukou system? The Origin and Significance of the Household Registration System After 1949, China adopted a centralized mand planning system and a Stalinisttype economic development strategy. Maximizing the industrial output was the major concern of the economic planners. Given its limited financial and economic resources, the Chinese government elected to develop industry at the expense of agriculture. In order to induce unequal exchanges between industrial and agricultural sectors, the Chinese government had to create, first and foremost, a political mechanism that not only artificially separated industry from agriculture, and the cities from the countryside, but also blocked the free flow of resources, including labor. The Chinese solution was the hukou system. On January 9, 1958, the standing mittee of the First National People’s Congress passed “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Residence Registration.” These regulations formally initiated a fullblown nationwide hukou system. It required each family in urban areas to register at the public security department and to hold a valid registration booklet. In the booklet, the name, birth date, occupation of each family member, residence of the amily, and family status (agricultural or nonagricultural) were China classified nearly 90 percent of the population living in the countryside as agricultural. This segment of the population was not allowed to change their hukou st