Dang'an

{{redirect|Dangan|the village in Iran|Dangan, Iran}} '''Dang'an''' ({{zh|s=档案|t=檔案|p=dàng'àn}}) is a Chinese word meaning "archived record/file". Used in the political and administrative context, it means a permanent dossier or archival system that records the "performance and attitudes" of citizens of the People's Republic of China.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last1=Chin |first1=Josh |url=https://archive.org/details/surveillancestat0000chin |title=Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control |last2=Lin |first2=Liza |date=2022 |isbn=978-1-250-24929-6 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=220–221 |oclc=1315574672}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |date=13 March 2002 |title=Whether the Public Security Bureau (PSB) has a national computer network that records all resident identification cards and alerts police stations nationally, upon inquiry, whether or not an individual has an outstanding police summons or arrest warrant [CHN38011.E] |url=https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/1005126.html  |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241217065711/https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/1005126.html |archive-date=2024-12-17 |accessdate=2024-12-17 |website=European Country of Origin Information Network - ecoi.net}}</ref> Together with the current system of household registration, the Hukou system, it has been an important part of the government's efforts to maintain control of its people. Majority of the records are kept by the local archive bureaus, some by the State Archives Administration of China at the national level.

==Contents==

The Dang'an includes personal information such as physical characteristics, employment record, photograph, etc. However, it also contains many other documents that would be considered private in some other cultures. According to Wang Fei-ling and other sources, this includes appraisals by supervisors and peers, academic reports from primary school to university, professional credentials, any criminal convictions or administrative penalties, club/society memberships, employment records, and political history (such as Youth League and CPC membership and assessments). Some of the material is composed by the subject. Even the death certificate and eulogy may be placed in the file.<ref>[http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/peoples_republic_desire3.asp ReadingGroupGuides.com - The People's Republic of Desire by Annie Wang] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928014312/http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/peoples_republic_desire3.asp |date=2007-09-28 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last =Wang | first =Fei-ling | year =1998 | title =From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China | publisher =Rowman & Littlefield | isbn =0-8476-8880-1 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=Hg9YatUwiUwC&dq=dangan&pg=PA118 | accessdate =2007-08-21 }}. See p.118.</ref>

There are two copies for adults: one held on behalf of their work unit by its supervisory organization, and the other at the local Public Security Bureau (PSB). Access to dang'an is strictly controlled. Citizens do not usually see their dang'an,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3691/is_199804/ai_n8789374/pg_4 |title=Records management in China: Part 1--introduction |accessdate=2007-08-21 |last=Stephens |first=David O. |date=April 1998 |work=ARMA Records Management Quarterly }}</ref> although they may ask a Communist Party member to check it for them.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20060215_20_years_of_professional_managers_in_china.htm |title=20 Years of Professional Management in China (see comments) |accessdate=2007-08-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070809182127/http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20060215_20_years_of_professional_managers_in_china.htm |archive-date=2007-08-09 }}</ref> Alterations may only be carried out by special cadres, and when combined with the custom of guanxi the result is that, "Personal revenge, false entries, and special favors are thus part of the game."<ref>Wang, ''loc.cit.''</ref>

A Montreal-based human rights group has claimed that the PSB is in the process of computerizing the hundreds of millions of dang'an.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/publications/globalization/goldenShieldEng.html#N43 |title=China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China |accessdate=2007-08-21 |last=Walton |first=Greg |year=2001 |publisher=International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070708102709/http://www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/publications/globalization/goldenShieldEng.html#N43 |archive-date = July 8, 2007 |quote=The MPS announced last year that within three years it would have created a nationwide computerized database containing personal details and ID numbers for every adult in the country. In the past the Chinese government has kept a cumulative file (called the dangan) on every individual’s performance and attitudes from kindergarten, and throughout adult employment. This information will now be digitized... }}. See also IRBC, ''op.cit.''</ref>

==Significance==

During the Maoist era, these dossiers were consulted by work unit officials as they made decisions about the major life events of those under their control. Urban residents were assigned jobs by the state. Thereafter, permission from the work unit was needed for marriage, childbirth, and transferring the dang'an (i.e., changing workplace). During the Cultural Revolution era, they were even used to determine which individuals and families would be sent to carry out manual labour in the countryside, under the ''theory of bloodlines''. As late as 2003, academic Zhou Jinghao could write that, "A work unit controls employees basically through the dang'an (personnel dossier) system. An employee cannot transfer to another work unit without his dang'an."<ref>{{Cite book | last =Zhou | first =Jinghao | year =2003 | title =Remaking China's Public Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century | publisher =Praeger/Greenwood | isbn =978-0-275-97882-2 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=Xw5NmARYvxoC&dq=dangan+china&pg=PA113 | accessdate =2007-08-21 }}. See p.113.</ref>

As Chinese economic reform has proceeded, the situation has been less clear-cut, as the dang'an system conflicts with market-oriented labour contracts. Graduates have been able to choose their own employment since the mid-1990s in most regions (the latest, Tibet, in 2006), and marriage has not required work unit consent since 2003. Some private companies in prosperous Guangdong do not even require access to the files, which remains with the employee's neighbourhood committee.<ref>Stephens, ''op.cit.''</ref> However, individuals may still be granted or denied passports, promotions, and other benefits based on information in their dang'an. According to BBC journalist Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, "A black mark against you – a bad school report, a disagreement with your boss, a visit to a psychiatrist – all can travel with you for the rest of your life..."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2573.html |title=The dark side of China |accessdate=2007-08-21 |last=Wingfield-Hayes |first=Rupert |date=2005-06-19 |publisher=Association for Asian Research }}</ref> They are also used in investigations by the Ministry of State Security.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lubman |first=Sarah |publication-date=2000-08-21 |year=1992 |title=China and the Foreign Press |periodical=Nieman Reports |publisher=The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University |volume=53/54 |issue=4/1 |url=http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/99-4_00-1NR/Lubman_China.html |accessdate=2007-08-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908013308/http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/99-4_00-1NR/Lubman_China.html |archive-date=September 8, 2006 }} .</ref>

{{Quotation|The dossier means that every individual is responsible for all of their behaviour and everything they do will be recorded for the rest of their life. Consequently the dossier discourages any 'errant' behaviour and is seen as aiding the harmonious nature of the person’s ''work unit''.|Ouyang Huhua|<ref>{{cite conference |first = Huhua |last = Ouyang |date = July 2006 |title = Understanding the Chinese Learners' Community of Practices: An insider-outsider's view |conference = 2nd Biennial International Conference, University of Portsmouth |book-title = Report on ‘Responding to the Needs of the Chinese Learner in Higher Education: Internationalising the University’ |editor = Thorpe, Keir |url = http://www.lass.soton.ac.uk/education/CLearnConfRpt.doc |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120723075810/http://www.lass.soton.ac.uk/education/CLearnConfRpt.doc |url-status = dead |archive-date = 2012-07-23 |accessdate = 2007-08-21 }}</ref>}}

==Limitations of the dang'an system==

An embryonic dang'an is created when individuals enter the school system.<ref>{{Cite news | last=Kristof | first=Nicholas D. | date=1992-03-16 | title=Where Each Worker is Yoked to a Personal File | periodical=New York Times (International Edition) }}. Quotations from this article are apparently recorded in {{cite web |url = http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/OtherPDFs/When%20Johnny%20Takes%20The%20Test_Fields_Leslie_Hoge__2005_10pg_Edu.pdf |title = When Johnny Takes the Test |accessdate = 2007-08-21 |last = Fields |first = Melanie K. |author2 = Leslie, Sarah H |author3 = Hoge, Anita B. |year = 1995 |work = The Christian Conscience |quote = file opened on each urban citizen when he or she enters elementary school, and it shadows the person throughout life, moving on to high school, college, employer. |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070813210325/http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/OtherPDFs/When%20Johnny%20Takes%20The%20Test_Fields_Leslie_Hoge__2005_10pg_Edu.pdf |archive-date = 2007-08-13 |url-status = dead }}</ref> This is similar to the permanent file of a school student in some Western school systems, and is transferred from school to school, but in China it is required for entry to university or a work unit, to which the file is then transferred. Millions of peasants, who work on family farms or in small businesses, never acquire a dang'an. Those who do are classified as either cadres (Chinese: ''ganbu'') or workers (Chinese: ''gōngrén''). It is difficult to cross this boundary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20060610_hukou_system_in_china.htm |title=Hukou System in China (see comment 12 June 2006, 2023) |accessdate=2007-08-21 |last=Wang |first=Jianshuo |date=2006-06-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070808024838/http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20060610_hukou_system_in_china.htm |archive-date=August 8, 2007 }}</ref>

According to Zhou, "private and foreign-funded enterprises are no longer required to receive the dang'an when they hire employees."<ref>Zhou, loc.cit.</ref> Instead, foreign firms transfer them to the Ministry of Commerce.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/china/IND0402_china_ca.pdf |title=CHINA COUNTRY ASSESSMENT |accessdate=2007-08-21 |author=Country Policy and Information Unit |author-link=Home Office |date=April 2002 |publisher=Immigration and Nationality Division, Home Office |quote=The system has started to crumble in recent times, for example, the dang'an of employees of foreign companies are transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Trade. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928044559/http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/china/IND0402_china_ca.pdf |archive-date=2007-09-28 }}</ref>

The future of dang'an was questioned by Qiao Shi, P.R.China's number three leader in the mid-90s. In 1996, he proposed to the National People's Congress that the dang'an system be abolished. Both Qiao and the proposal fell out of favour the following year.<ref>{{Cite book | last =Tien | first =Hung-mao | year =2000 | title =China Under Jiang Zemin | publisher =Lynne Rienner Publishers | isbn =978-1-55587-927-3 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=khyLT_sU7fcC&dq=dangan+china&pg=PA42 | accessdate =2007-08-21 }} P.42: "Notwithstanding his career in the security apparatus, Qiao also proposed that the party's system of internal spies and personnel files (''dangan'') be disbanded."</ref>

==Comparison to Western systems== American education activist John Taylor Gatto, for example, draws comparisons to dang'an in his critique of the United States school system.<ref>{{cite web |url = https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dangan+%22John+Taylor+Gatto%22+-Wikipedia |title = Google Search: dangan "John Taylor Gatto" -Wikipedia |accessdate = 2007-08-21 }}</ref>

== Computerized data repository == In 2015, the ''Financial Times'' reported that the 13th Five Year Plan, planned for the period 2016–2020, includes plans to establish a "centralised repository for citizen information" to "the creation of a robust [national] socio-psychological service system."<ref>{{Cite news|url = http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/11/16/chinas-social-credit-score-system-is-doomed-to-fail/|title = China's social credit score system is doomed to fail|last = Hamilton|first = Gilliam Collinsworth |date = November 16, 2015|work = Financial Times|access-date = 2015-12-26}}</ref> This system has subsequently been referred to in English-language press accounts as the "social credit system".

==See also== *Public record *Archive *Social Credit System

== References == {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Wikisourcelang|zh|中华人民共和国档案法}} * [http://www.saac.gov.cn/ State Archives Administration of China]

Category:Government of China Category:Chinese family registers