Shanghai shelves plan to revoke ‘hukou’ of foreign residency holders

SHANGHAI: Shanghai has put on hold a new policy allowing police to revoke the ‘ hukou’, or household registration, of the city’s citizens who hold foreign passports or residency permits, following public outcry.

Shanghai residents who hold foreign passports or settle abroad are required to cancel their Shanghai hukou and a tweak to that policy due to take effect in May empowered police to revoke the hukou of anyone who refused.

A vestige of the planned economy, the hukou system assigns each Chinese citizen a jurisdiction of residence that determines their access to education and other social welfare services.

Hukou registrations can be hard to change and the system has been a lightning rod for controversy in a free-wheeling economy powered by mass internal migration.

Critics say it disadvantages the hundreds of millions of people from rural areas who work in cities but don’t have residency status.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said on Sunday online that because implementation rules had not been enacted and the precise meaning of ‘establishing residency abroad’ remained undefined, it would refrain from enforcing the policy.

“At this stage, Shanghai public security organs will not cancel the hukou of people who have established residency abroad,” it said. — Reuters