Refugee Flow or Brain-Drain? The Humanitarian Policy and Post-Tiananmen Mainland Chinese Immigration to Canada

Bibliographic Data

ID12435189
AuthorsXiaofeng Liu (0000-0002-5160-0335, York University, corresponding author), Xiao-Feng Liu (0000-0003-0648-4897)
Year1997
Volume3
Issue1
Pages15-29
Publication date1997-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Population Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1077-3495 • E-ISSN: 1099-1220
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/(sici)1099-1220(199703)3:1<15::aid-ijpg58>3.0.co;2-v
PMID12321147
OpenAlexW2040666566
LanguageEN
Citations received8

The humanitarian policy that the Canadian government implemented in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown changed a migration system primarily based on personal networks into a brain drain. Post-Tiananmen mainland Chinese immigrants (MCIs) were better educated than those arriving in Canada previously. Among the post-Tiananmen MCIs, those who landed under the policy were better educated than those landing in other categories. The analysis suggests that post-Tiananmen MCIs represented a brain-drain rather than a refugee flow, that the humanitarian policy implicitly contained ideological and human capital concerns in addition to humanitarian concerns, and that Canada benefited from the policy by obtaining human capital as well as satisfying its humanitarian obligations and ideological aspirations

China · Development economics · Economics · Government (linguistics · Human rights · Humanitarian aid · Humanitarian crisis · Ideology · Immigration · Immigration policy · Mainland China · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Law