ABSTRACT
Chinese civilization has had many distinctive institutional and cultural peculiarities in its long history. The tianxia (all under the heavens) conceptualization of a centralized, hierarchical, sociopolitical order for the whole known world, which was fi rst implemented by the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE), and the rubiao fali (Legalism coated with Confucianism) imperial governance which came into being with the Western Han Dynasty (202 BCE-9 BCE), are just two leading examples. To anchor the Chinese sociopolitical order and sustain the Qin-Han-style institutional framework, Chinese rulers have relied on a highly unique and very profound way to manage the people, a peculiar institutional exclusion that has served as a foundation for identifying, segmenting, organizing, and controlling the massive and ever-growing population. This Chinese institutional exclusion is featured with the key role of the hukou (household registration) system, which has been used from the Qin Empire basically all the way to the PRC (People’s Republic of China) today.
