This chapter provides a systematic review of the legal, policy and institutional framework for refugee status determination and treatment of refugees in China. Although China acceded to the Refugee Convention and Protocol in 1982, it has not established a national mechanism for refugee status determination. Chinese law, as it currently stands, contains few provisions pertaining to refugees or asylum, is silent on who qualifies as a refugee and provides no express protection against refoulement. At the policy level, the Chinese government, in its limited public statements on refugee issues, appears to emphasise addressing root causes, rather than local integration or resettlement, as a preferred solution to refugee crises. In practice, UNHCR is the only organisation that processes asylum applications in China, whereas the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Civil Affairs have handled refugees in mass-influx situations without involving UNHCR.

This chapter provides in-depth legal and policy analyses of China’s response to five mass influxes of refugees, namely the Vietnamese refugee crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the continuous inflow of North Korean escapees since the mid-1990s, the influxes of displaced ethnic Kokangs from Myanmar in August 2009 and in 2015 and the influxes of ethnic Kachins from Myanmar since 2011. This chapter also discusses the treatment of UNHCR refugees in China.