Cross-border division of labor and China’s border control upon Myanmar migrants

Border cities in Yunnan, China, have become attractive destinations among Myanmar migrants. Using Ruili as a case study, this paper analyzes China’s border control upon Myanmar migrants to create a cross-border division of labor. It finds that China experiments with a flexible model of border control by allowing Myanmar migrants to cross the border with relative ease and integrate into the local labor market, while denying their rights to civil protection and limiting their mobility to other Chinese cities. This model promotes and regulates the movement of Myanmar migrant workers, constituting a pragmatic order to facilitate the logic of capital accumulation. The cross-border division of labor in production between Ruili and northern Myanmar articulates a spatially uneven structure of capitalist production that creates incentive and hinderance to low-end workers’ transnational migration and, moreover, reflects the Chinese state’s efforts to encourage industrial relocation from the affluent coast to the poor hinterland to address regional disparity.