Exporting People for Development: The Causes and Consequences of State-Led Family Migration in Qinghai’s Noodle Economy

This article examines how local states in Qinghai have turned labor export into a development strategy, using the province’s “noodle economy” to promote large-scale, long-term out-migration. Drawing on multi-sited qualitative research, it shows how county governments in Hualong and Xunhua have mobilized training, loans, cadre persuasion, and branch offices to encourage Hui and Salar households to establish qingzhen (halal) noodle restaurants across eastern China. This strategy has successfully generated remittances, consumption, and fiscal revenues, yet it has also enhanced social and educational exclusion for households and the long-term hollowing out of origin villages. By analyzing labor export as an institutionalized practice of local states, the article reframes internal migration not as spontaneous movement or resettlement but as the organized export of populations to stimulate growth—akin to international “emigration states.” It highlights how such policies externalize social costs to households while valorizing remittances and even absence as developmental success.