Outline
Illegal Chinese immigrants are everywhere. They are the food we eat; they are the clothes we wear. They walk the same streets we walk and inhabit the same city we live. They do not live in the prison, but they are imprisoned. They are not a slave class, but they are exploited. Illegal Chinese immigrants live in a parallel world to ours. Sometimes they are our infrastructure. The aim of the research is as follows:
To reveal the parallel world of illegal Chinese immigrants in our local context.
To understand when/where these two parallel worlds meet.
To understand the spatial implication of human (Chinese) trafficking.
To map the use of city by illegal Chinese immigrants in urban context.
To map the spatial configuration of legal-illegal networks.
To document the use of space by illegal Chinese immigrants.
Relevance
To raise awareness. Even if we cannot know whether what we wear and what we eat comes out of a Chinese sweatshop, we should not pretend that it is not possible.
Not knowing is a form of self-imprisonment.
To be the architect-witness for people of no face and no voice.
Key Words
Globalisation and sweatshop
Forced economic exploitation (EE)
Modern slavery
Voluntary or forced
Underground ethnic economy
Invisible and visible
Fear
Parallel worlds
Related Words
Xenophobia
Ethnocentrism
Eurocentrism
Aspiration
Locations
Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Rotterdam
Research Chapters:
A. General Research on Chinese Emigration in historic and contemporary conditions
01 History:
Chinese movement towards west started with Zhangqian. First exploration in 139BC; second exploration in 119 BC.
02 Recent History:
Why do Chinese people leave China? China is modernising and getting wealthier, but why are so many people leaving China? The reasons are complicated. For example, difficulty in domestic economic restructuring in China. Most immigrants come from Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province and Fuqing City in Fujian Province.
Fujian provinces, being the home of many illegal immigrants, is actually not the poorest regions in China. However, youngsters still hope to find better jobs with handsome income elsewhere. So their family’s living conditions can be improved. They are driven by complex economic and social motive.
Starting 10 to 15 years ago, most immigrants are from rural areas from Fujian or Zhejiang Provinces (RMB 200,000 to immigrate).
In recent years many immigrants are from areas in serious recession in north-east of China/Manchuria, where the restructuring of local industry, such as Tieling, led to drastic unemployment (under RMB 100,000 to immigrate).
Immigrants with little education, former farmers or small vendors.
03 How Chinese society and network is transplanted overseas?
How do these networks mutate in legal and illegal spheres?
How is this tight and non-penetrable network constructed?
Legal networks vs. illegal networks (underground ethnic economy)
B. E/Im-migration Policies in EU and China
01 Immigration policy in EU (for example, France or the Netherlands)
Rules of inclusion and exclusion
NL’s foreign policy in relation to China
Official estimation of legal and illegal Chinese (e.g. in Rotterdam or Paris)
Recently, the first destination for Chinese immigrants has shifted to Europe from the US, simply because the cost of smuggling Chinese immigrants to the US is twice higher than that to Europe. Additional, it is believed that applicants for refuge-seeking will receive more generous treatment in European countries.
The most popular destination in EU is France and England.
France: 50,000 people (70% in Paris, the remaining in the eastern and northern France), according to International Labour Organisation study.
30,000 to 50,000 people according to Ministry of Internal Affairs in France.
6,000 people Arriving in Paris and surrounding region each year.
02 China’s policy towards emigration
03 Detention facilities in EU (architectural device)
Merwehaven in Rotterdam
Steenokkerzeel near Brussels
De Gaulle Airport in Paris
C. Research on People Smuggling and Trafficking
01 Trafficking of human being across trans-national borders as enterprise. (Scale: China to EU)
Snakeheads (illegal immigration organisations including criminal gangsters) exploit tourism, conference or study as channel to traffic people in disguise of tourists or students.
02 Study of trafficking routes through sea-way. Case study: Dover case. On 20 June 2000, 58 Chinese stowaways suffocated to death in an airtight truck of tomatoes AT Dover, England.
03 Study of trafficking routes through air-way. Case study.
04 Study of trafficking routes by train, car and by foot. Case study: cross China-Russia border, via Eastern Europe and arrive in France. Interview: people walked from Russia to France across mountains. During the journey they were abandoned by snakeheads. People got ill and died in the mountains. Women got raped…
05 comparison of various routes: fast one month, slow one year.
D. Working and Living Condition in Local Context
01 Economic Chain of Illegal Immigration
The journey to Europe: people smugglers charging 14,500 to 24,000 US dollars for the journey and the immigrants need to spend 2 to 10 years to pay it off. (According to ILO study 75 per cent of Chinese migrants who have illegally entered France owe debts ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 euros to their traffickers.)
Sweatshop: cloth-manufacturing, restaurants and construction.
Salary: 300 to 500 euros a month for 15 to 18 hours a day, 40% is confiscated by employer (ILO study). Some employers continue to exploit the workers (by blackmail) even after the debt is paid off. To avoid the exposure to the French inspectors, employers divide the workers into hundreds of home-based units, separating them from the outside world.
People-smugglers take the ID cards away from the illegal immigrants at the beginning of the voyage and hand them to their employers in Paris. The traffickers will take part of immigrants’ salary as their rewards.
‘Home-made’ food workshops for restaurants employers to avoid police inspection and social and fiscal obligations- Chinese ravioli, fish kebab, Japanese sushi are produced in small room and large quantity. One piece of ravioli is bought by restaurant at 50 eurocent and sold for at least 3 euro.
It is exploitation every step of the way.
02 After journey paid off: minimum wedge
Cleaning EUR 8/hour (Rotterdam)
Prostitution EUR 7 to 10/hour (Paris)
03 Social Aspects
Consequence of lack of language
Isolation and poverty
Fear of being caught by police
Abuse without complaint
(ILO study: The migrants have little recourse to the assistance provided by the destination society, the study notes. Labour inspectors find that, unlike other nationalities, they hardly ever receive complaints from the Chinese regarding working conditions. In addition to the language barrier, there is also the fear of questioning and being forced to return to China.)
04 How illegal immigrants work and live in local context? (Urban scale: Rotterdam or Paris)
Ecology if life
Underground networks
Service sector inhabiting in inner city and reply on public infrastructure.
Sweatshop and restaurants
Daily route (front door and back doors)
Mapping the trajectories and urban signifiers
05 Working and living environment
Mapping the space (Architectural scale)
For example, 10m2 (family Li, outskirt Paris) for work and living of 3 people (sewing clothes).
Sources:
‘International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Invisible prisoners: The trafficking and exploitation of Chinese immigrants in France’, Internet source: International Labour Organisation http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/features/05/chinese_immigrants.htm, last update 18 Aug. 2005, last visited 12 December. 2006
‘50,000 illegal Chinese immigrants miserable in Paris’, Internet source: People's Daily Online, http://english.people.com.cn/200506/24/eng20050624_192189.htm, last update 24 June 2005, last visited 12 December 2006
F. Wang王芳, ‘中国非法移民在法现状:已为人母大嫂街头卖身’, Internet source: www.people.com.cn, last update 20 Feb 2004, last visited 02 May 2006
