Current trends, emerging issues and future perspectives

China’s internal migration is often compared to international migration in the sense that internal migrants are subject to substantial institutional constraints similar to crossing national boundaries. In addition, the identity adaptation and formation process of China’s rural-urban migrants shares many similarities with that of international migrants. By including studies of both internal and international migrations in one volume, it is hoped that more accessible references could be made available in one place to readers who are not only interested in China’s internal migration and international migration but also appreciate their comparative aspects. The conclusion summarizes the major trends and looks ahead to emerging issues. Internally, we can expect significant institutional changes that will affect the scale, directions and impacts of migration. These changes have the potential to improve the status, livelihood and wellbeing of migrants. Rural left-behind village communities stand to make considerable gains as more efforts are directed at loosening the institutional regulations that are holding back agricultural development. Tapping the potential development impacts of internal migrants returning to villages will lead to major improvements in rural areas. Internationally the relationship between China and its diasporas has already changed and intensified so that mainland-centred Chinese modernity exploits the diasporas for ‘capitalist knowledge and mutual self-interest in pursuit of global superpower status’ (Ang 2013, p. 29). If just a small proportion of overseas Chinese participate in this partnership, as appears to be the case, China will continue to grow and flourish economically. How this translates into political transformation is difficult to predict.