A Guide to PRC Documentation states that the work unit (danwei) issued the PRC Work Permit to Chinese citizens (Mar. 1995, 45). Please find attached a sample of the PRC Work Permit. Information on the danwei can be found in CHN25067.E of 30 October 1996 and CHN19714.E of 3 February 1995. CHN9220 of 28 August 1991 makes reference to work documents, while CHN1545 of 21 July 1989 makes reference to work permits in China.

A Lecturer in Law at the King's College London Strand School of Law, who specializes in regulatory controls in Europe, North America and China, stated the following on employment records in China in 4 April 2001 correspondence:

In principle, every adult Chinese citizen has a personal record or archive (dang'an) that records that person's entire employment history. These personal dang'an are no longer kept as meticulously as they once were, but the basic information should still be recorded.

The 'dang'an' was more than an employment record. It was one of the primary means of controlling an individual's life, recording all officially relevant details about the individual including his or her permitted place of residence. In principle, a person cannot move from one employer to another without the transfer of the dang'an. The work unit normally held the dang'an and updated it when necessary. Employers could therefore prevent employees from leaving by refusing to transfer the dang'an. Now, however, many companies are not willing to take responsibility for their employees' personal dang'an and these are simply lodged with the local office of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare (local to the person's place of employment).

According to a 1 July 1997 Inside China Mainland report, information provided by Communist Party officials in personal files were divided into two parts: one part contained information related to a person's work record and the other part contained information relevant to a person's loyalty to the Communist Party. People were not allowed to know what was contained in their personal files (ibid.). Please consult the attached article for additional information on China's personal filing system. The Economist reported the following on the personal dossier (or dang'an) of Chinese nationals in a 14 February 1998 article:

In the cities, Chinese lives are ordered by the dang'an, a system of control whereby manila files are kept on everyone. The files are open to inspection or annotation by local Communist Party chiefs, but not by the individual concerned. The dossier may start to gather entries when its subject is at primary school. It becomes the responsibility of the party secretary at the work unit when employment begins. These secretaries wield tyrannical power. Many Chinese despair as, year after year, they are passed by for promotion, all because of a black mark made years earlier in the

dang'an.

Without a personal file detailing their political background, profession, technical qualifications and seniority, no one can fit into the government plan. That means no state employment, no housing--which in China is usually allocated by a work unit--no pension, no chance of a passport and no right to a child under the work unit's annual quota. (An urban child born outside the plan, as well as incurring a hefty financial penalty, becomes a "non-person", ineligible for household registration.)

Yet the market is making inroads into the files. People who work for a foreign company are said to be "employed" by the Ministry of Foreign Trade, which guards their dossiers for a fee. The ministry knows little about political attitudes or performance--nor does it care. It has few of the usual obligations towards the workers concerned, such as providing housing.

The rise of the Chinese entrepreneur has also brought about change. The job of guarding files for people employed in the private sector has been contracted out. In the capital, the files of most privately employed workers are guarded by the Beijing Talent Centre, which is housed inside a former concubines' compound at the Forbidden City. Wu Yong, a senior manager there, calls the centre a "service business". The Talent Centre lacks the power of a party chief to annotate people's files, and merely has them for safekeeping. But it is also meant to help with social welfare and other issues. One recent visitor there wanted advice on an unfair-dismissal suit he is bringing against a foreign joint-venture.

When leaving the public sector for the private, the individual must collect his dang'an from his work unit and take it to the Talent Centre.

References to dang'an or personal dossier can be found in CHN18410.E of 15 September 1994 and CHN9142 of 6 August 1991. References to work permits for internal migrants in China can be found in the Research Directorate's September 1998 Issue Paper entitled: China: Internal Migration and the Floating Population.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Country Information Service (CIS), Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Canberra. March 1995. A Guide to PRC Documentation: Part 2.

The Economist [London]. 14 February 1998. "China. The X-Files." (NEXIS)

Inside China Mainland [Tapei]. 1 July 1997. "A Tool for Controlling the People - The File-Keeping System." (NEXIS)

Lecturer in Law, School of Law, King's College London Strand, UK. 4 April 2001. Correspondence.

Country Information Service (CIS), Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Canberra. March 1995. A Guide to PRC Documentation: Part 2, p. 45.

Inside China Mainland [Tapei]. 1 July 1997. "A Tool for Controlling the People - The File-Keeping System." (NEXIS)

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2000. 2001

IRB Databases

LEXIS/NEXIS

World News Connection (WNC)

Internet sites including:

Amnesty International

Freedom House

Human Rights in China

Human Rights Watch

Immigration and Nationality Directorate, UK

International Labour Organization (ILO)

People's Daily Online

Search Engines:

Dogpile

Fast Search

Google