Although the pace of the demolition has slowed for now, many of the city\u2019s poorer residents fear they will be frozen out in future<\/b>
\nZhang Jun was lucky. Evicted from his rented hut in the east of Beijing, the electrician from Anhui province managed to find a flat in the same village in Chaoyang district.
Like many others \u2013 tens of thousands of mostly poorer migrant workers \u2013 he was forced to move out after the electricity and water was cut off on December 1, in freezing temperatures, amid a 40-day safety blitz by Beijing to rid the city of \u201cillegal structures\u201d. The campaign was launched after 19 people were killed in a fire in the city\u2019s Daxing district on November 18.
Zhang now has a new home in the same area, at an affordable rent of 1,000 yuan (US$150) a month.
But for Zhou Xiaoyun, who has sold steamed buns, fruit and vegetables for the past 10 years in Daxing, finding a new place for her family to live, and for her to work, has not been so easy \u2013 her husband is still looking. She said they had been evicted along with all of her neighbours in the village of Haizijiao.
\u201cOur electricity has been cut off and we haven\u2019t had any running water for a week,\u201d Zhou, who has three young children, said. \u201cI\u2019m too upset to sleep or eat properly. I cry whenever I think about it. This is my home and for all I know it will soon be gone.\u201d
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The authorities moved swiftly after the blaze ripped through a three-storey block of flats packed with migrants last month. Many of the city\u2019s neighbourhoods where migrant workers live have already been cleared as part of the safety crackdown. Xinjian, for example, another village in Daxing, was reduced to rubble within a week, and any illegal buildings deemed unsafe were cleared and sealed off.
The migrant workers who used to live in them suddenly found themselves out on the street. Those who can still make a better living in Beijing than their hometowns have stayed, taking a risk that they will find somewhere else they can afford to rent. But those who cannot are having to leave the capital, even though it has been home for years in some cases.
Economists are expecting an exodus of migrant workers from Beijing in the coming months, and say the campaign will have a broader impact on the cost of living in the city.
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Zhang, the electrician, has worked in the capital for almost seven years. He decided to stay because his skills installing and repairing air conditioners are in demand. He was prepared to pay more rent for a smaller room \u2013 that 1,000 yuan gets him 8 square metres. He has a bunk bed, a table and access to a toilet on the ground floor via a narrow ladder, while his small collection of clothes hang outside in the corridor.
It is a bit more cramped for now because the friend who helped him move in, another migrant worker, has yet to find a new place of his own so he is staying with Zhang temporarily.
Rents have gone up since the evictions began, and that is making it even harder to find a place. Another migrant worker from Anhui, who declined to give her name, said many people from her neighbourhood were struggling to find somewhere affordable to rent.
\u201cOne building said they would only rent flats to white-collar workers or artists,\u201d she said. \u201cIt can cost at least 5,000 yuan a month to rent somewhere in a \u2018proper\u2019 building now.\u201d
Rent for the cheap places that have temporarily survived the crackdown has also doubled. \u201cA room without heating can cost 800 yuan now,\u201d she said.
Property agents said they had seen a lot of people scrambling to find a place to rent.
\u201cIf there\u2019s a place going, people will snap it up as if it\u2019s the last one,\u201d according to one real estate agent near the village of Huangcun in Daxing. \u201cThey\u2019ll ask about available flats and immediately pay a deposit because they\u2019re worried it will be taken by someone else. We\u2019ve seen the price of a two-bedroom flat go up from 2,800 yuan to 3,300 yuan within a day.\u201d
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But for some, paying more rent is not an option and they will have no choice but to leave.
Zhou\u2019s ramshackle home is still standing for now, but if her husband cannot find somewhere else for the family to live and where she can continue her small business, they will have to go back to farming in her hometown Heze, in Shandong province. That would be a bitter blow for the family. Zhou, tears in her eyes, said her children, who go to school in Beijing, had begged her to stay.
The campaign has prompted an outpouring of sympathy for the migrant workers in Beijing, where many have been shocked by the sudden evictions and their scale.
More than 100 Chinese academics signed a letter urging the authorities to stop forcing migrant workers from their homes in the name of safety. The backlash has even extended to state-run media outlets, including Global Times and People\u2019s Daily, both of which have carried critical reports.
A week after the clean-up campaign began, under mounting pressure, the Communist Party chief of Beijing Cai Qi said it would be less \u201chasty\u201d and tenants would be given more time to prepare before they were evicted.
Demolition work in some areas appears to have slowed since then, but the authorities said buildings identified as unsafe and illegal would still be torn down, just not immediately.
The government also emphasised that the campaign was aimed at improving safety rather than forcing out low-end migrant workers.
It was responding to accusations that it is using the safety crackdown as a convenient way to reduce Beijing\u2019s population \u2013 something it has been trying to do since 2014 by pushing out unwanted factories, schools and markets.
That strategy appears to be working. The number of migrant workers staying in Beijing for longer than six months fell last year for the first time in two decades. There were 8.01 million such workers last year, a drop of 150,000 from 2015.
Beijing wants to cap its population at 23 million from 2020 \u2013 an increase of 6 per cent from last year\u2019s 21.7 million \u2013 as it tries to turn the sprawling, overcrowded capital into a liveable, international city with cleaner air.
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But in the short term at least, the campaign is expected to have a \u201cmassive, comprehensive and negative impact\u201d on the city, according to Chen Zhiwu, director of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong.
\u201cMigrants have made a great contribution to Beijing, and to the country. Without them, the city can\u2019t function and people will see a sharp rise in their living costs,\u201d Chen said.
Beijing\u2019s economy grew a robust 6.7 per cent last year to 2.5 trillion yuan, mainly thanks to the banks, insurers and hi-tech companies.
Although most of the more than eight million migrants living in the capital do not work in high-end sectors, they support the city\u2019s economy by providing basic services.
Economist Hu Xingdou, with the Beijing Institute of Technology, said the ruthless campaign to drive out migrants and tear down their homes with little or no notice could backfire on the government.
\u201cThey\u2019re building a fortress like we see in Pyongyang, North Korea, where the affluent people are cut off from the poor. But this sort of separation won\u2019t do anything to address China\u2019s problem of a growing disparity between the rich and the poor \u2013 it will develop into social unrest,\u201d Hu said.
Sales assistant Xiao Chen has been evicted from her home and is about to lose her job in a cosmetics shop, but she had less invested in the city than some other migrants. She moved from nearby Hebei to try her luck in the capital, but now she is not sure what to do. Most of the shops on the street where she works in Fijia village, Daxing, have been identified as \u201cillegal structures\u201d and will be closed.
\u201cWhen the shop shuts I guess I\u2019ll just see what happens. If I can\u2019t find a new job quickly, I might go home,\u201d she said. \u201cI just wish I was a native Beijinger,\u201d she added. \u201cHow nice it would be.\u201d
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After decades of contributing to the capital\u2019s development, some migrant workers say they have been made to feel unwelcome and it is time to move on.
Liu Jianbin, from Jilin province, has worked in Beijing for years, including running a small shop and a printing business. Now, he is moving further south, to Langfang in Hebei.
But life in Hebei might not be any easier. Authorities in Wanzhuang, in Langfang, have already warned landlords not to take tenants or businesses evicted from Beijing, according to a notice obtained by the South China Morning Post.
\u201cI used to live south of the third ring road before 2008,\u201d Liu said. \u201cI\u2019ve been moving further and further away from the city centre since then because we\u2019re not wanted here any more.\u201d<\/p>\n