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11. Moving to Beijing

Beijing at a Glance

Moving to Beijing

Badaling is one of the most visited parts of the Great Wall.

Moving to Beijing is probably the first choice for a considerable number of foreigners coming to live in mainland China. While disclosing the wealth of China’s cultural heritage to tourists and expatriates, moving to Beijing will also show you the disadvantages of a contemporary Chinese mega-city: crowdedness, traffic congestions, air pollution, the occasional power shortage, and sometimes extreme weather conditions, with sandstorms in spring, sweltering summers, and freezing winters.

Nonetheless, expat life in the capital can be a fascinating opportunity. Below, you’ll find a few practical tips for moving to Beijing.

Moving to Beijing: A Short History

Beijing became the capital of the Great Mongolian Empire in the late 13^th century. The major enhancement in its status resulted in more people moving to Beijing. This was also the time when the travels of Marco Polo captured the European imagination. In his manuscripts, the Italian merchant described moving to Beijing to meet the Great Khan himself.

Meanwhile, after the end of the rather short-lived Yuan Dynasty, the historical city largely became what it is today. The Ming emperors decided to move to Beijing’s Forbidden City, and representatives from other East Asian nations had to move to Beijing in order to pay tribute to the influential and powerful regime.

Several centuries later, during the Second Opium War (1856-1860), Anglo-French forces invaded the city, forcing the imperial government to grant the British, French, and Russians the right to establish a permanent diplomatic presence. Subsequently, the first diplomatic staff members from Western powers started moving to Beijing.

Since the late 19^th century, the city went through several wars – be it a nationalist rebellion, revolutionary upheavals, more invasions by foreign powers, or a full-blown civil war – before it became the capital of contemporary China in 1949. Ever since then, migrant workers (míngōng), industrial laborers, employees, government officials, and foreign nationals have been moving to Beijing in a seemingly endless stream. The municipal population now counts 19.6 million inhabitants.

Moving to Beijing: Contemporary Beijing

In Maoist China, moving to Beijing was impossible due to the country’s isolationist politics. Even after the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s more liberal rule, it was mostly expats from diplomatic circles who were moving to Beijing to live in designated foreigners’ quarters. Today, however, foreign nationals moving to Beijing do so for a variety of reasons.

The universities and colleges in Haidian District attract visiting students, guest lecturers, and EFL teachers. Many foreign-invested enterprises as well as Chinese companies have a branch office with a permanent representative moving to Beijing, to maintain their ties to Chinese government bureaucracy.

The city also has a flourishing “post-industrial” business climate, so many expats moving to Beijing will be working in finance, real estate, or in prestige projects from science and high-tech. Last but not least, its status as the home of China’s national institutions means that numerous foreign correspondents move to the city to report about the latest developments in Chinese politics and economy.