北京发起拆除非法住房行动

Beijing has started a Citywide wave of demolitions and evictions within migrant worker communities, the biggest city clean-up campaign in a decade.

北京在全市范围针对进城务工人员聚居区发起了清理拆迁行动，这是该市10年来最大规模的城市清理行动。

The surge in evictions was prompted by an apartment fire last week that killed 19 people in Beijing’s Daxing district, just south of the city’s affluent centre and an area where many garment factories employing migrant workers operate.

这波拆迁的导火线是近日北京市大兴区一栋公寓楼发生火灾，造成19人死亡（文首照片是火灾后的这栋公寓楼——编者注）。大兴区坐落于北京富裕的中心城区以南，这里有很多雇佣农民工的服装厂。

In response, Beijing last week initiated 40 days of citywide safety inspections that have left migrant workers struggling to find shelter during a winter cold snap as informal settlements and businesses were shuttered with little notice.

火灾发生后，北京市政府很快宣布在全市开展为期40天的安全隐患大排查、大清理、大整治专项行动。由于非正规的居住点和企业在几乎没有通知的情况下被拆，很多务工人员在冷空气影响中国首都之际一时找不到住所。

This evictions are part of the largest demolition campaign the city has seen since preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The clearances have renewed concerns that the government wants to accelerate the gentrification of old Beijing.

此轮清拆是该市自2008年北京奥运会筹备阶段以来最大规模的拆迁行动的一部分。这些拆迁令人再度担忧政府希望加快推进北京旧城区的高档化。

“I think the government wanted an excuse to begin these urban clean-ups,” said a native of Henan province surnamed Xu who sells food in Daxing district. “They have never wanted people like us, and now they have a new reason to kick us out.”

“我认为政府想要一个借口来搞这些城市清理行动，”在大兴区卖食品的一位姓徐的河南人表示。“他们从来不想要我们这样的人，现在他们有一个新的理由把我们踢走。”

Municipal officials want to demolish a total of 40m square metres in illegal dwellings by the end of this year. This has resulted in an acceleration of a depopulation drive this year that has decimated small businesses and schools catering to migrants.

市政官员希望在今年底之前拆除4000万平方米的违规住房。今年以来的人口疏解行动因此加快进行，导致面向务工人员的小企业和学校难以为继。

In 2006, in the run up to the Olympics, 45m square metres of illegal construction were demolished to make space for new infrastructure, according to municipal statistics, mostly in the city’s centre, displacing up to 1.5m residents.

北京市政府的统计数据显示，2006年，在北京夏季奥运会筹备期间，4500万平方米的违规建筑被拆除，为新的基础设施腾出空间，拆迁地段大部分在市中心，导致150万市民搬迁。

Beijing’s evictions and demolitions are in line with a ruling Communist party policy announced in 2013 of “tightly controlling” the population in China’s largest cities, while making it easier for migrants to settle and access social services in smaller cities.

北京的拆迁行动符合执政的共产党在2013年宣布的政策，即严格控制中国各大城市人口，同时让农村进城人员在中小城市更容易定居和获得社会服务。

“Beneath every city's gleaming surface lies the darker conditions of migrant workers,” said Xu Lin, the urban development director at China’s top policy planning body, at a summit last week. “We must recognise their contributions.”

国家发改委城市和小城镇改革发展中心主任徐林上周在一个峰会上表示，每座城市光鲜的表面之下，都隐藏着农民工阴暗的生存条件；必须承认他们的贡献。

The safety inspections have hit China’s ecommerce sector particularly hard, as many of the workers for on-demand services such as ride-hailing and food-delivery apps are migrants who frequently bunk in crowded apartments like that which burned down in Daxing last week.

安全隐患大排查给中国电子商务行业带来的冲击尤其沉重，因为许多按需服务（例如叫车和送餐app）的工作人员都是进城务工人员，这些人通常蜗居在拥挤的公寓楼，就像11月18日晚在大兴区被烧毁的那种楼。

“Every delivery worker has been affected somehow. Our dormitories are closing next Monday, and we were given seven days’ notice to move,” said a courier surnamed Li, who shares a room with five other men only 6km from the Forbidden City. “I have not found a new place, but we need to continue working regardless.”

“每个快递员多少都受到了影响。我们的宿舍将在周一关闭，我们接到了七天内搬家的通知，”一名姓李的快递员表示；他和另外五名男子在距离故宫仅6公里的地方合住一个房间。“我还没有找到新的住处，但我们还需要继续打工。”

Delivery workers are now sorting parcels and charging their vehicles outside after logistics station was deemed not up to code, he said. Several delivery workers said they had resorted to sleeping inside their delivery vehicles.

他说，在物流站被认定为不符合规定后，快递员们现在在户外分拣包裹，并给他们的车辆充电。几名快递员说，他们只能睡在送货车上。

“The overwhelming majority of workers in the new economy — including express delivery, food delivery, or ride apps such as Didi drivers — are in fact migrant workers,” said Keegan Elmer, a researcher at China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based campaign group.

“新经济产业中的绝大多数工人，包括快递员、送餐员，或者叫车app如滴滴出行的司机，实际上都是农民工，”总部位于香港的劳工权益组织《中国劳工通讯》(China Labour Bulletin)研究员基根?埃尔默(Keegan Elmer)表示。

“The new economy is still fuelled by migrant labour, particularly because employers, and even cities as we see here, treat them as a cheap and disposable workforce.”

“新经济仍然由农民工推动，尤其是因为雇主，甚至是我们在这个案例中看到的这种城市，都把他们视为廉价和一次性的劳动力。”