This ambitious book by Pál Nyíri yields refreshing insights about how diverse forms of travel—internal and international migration as well as domestic and international tourism—similarly reinforce the authority of the Chinese state to determine the meaning of mobility for the modern Chinese citizen. A clearly written and accessible work, Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China may be recommended to advanced undergraduates as well as to postgraduate students and scholars from Asian studies, cultural studies, or the social sciences interested in themes of mobility, culture, and globalization.

The juxtaposition in one book of different types of human mobility, usually approached as discrete topics of research, renders two arguments that Nyíri cogently outlines in the introduction. First, it highlights their shared significance to the “dominant discourse of modernization” (p. 7) promulgated by the “state-market matrix” (p. 5) in China today. Mobility of all sorts promotes China's economic growth: the “cheap” labor of internal migrants drives production and capital accumulation; tourists purchase goods and services; overseas contract workers and entrepreneurs provide remittances and increase trade; and expatriate scholars and business elites variously contribute knowledge, technical expertise, or investment capital to homeland development. Mobility of Chinese citizens is furthermore associated with the desirable trait of (Western) modernity (e.g., wealth, prestigious international education, leisure consumption, worldliness) as well as a nationalist mission to bring civilization to “backward” populations at home and abroad. These material and cultural aspects of mobility together boost China's international reputation and help generate patriotic sentiment and a homogenous racial-ethnic identity. Second, Nyíri finds that the Chinese state has proven quite capable of managing its mobile populations and maintaining its hegemony over the national image and citizen identity, through its vast and rather flexible administrative and cultural apparatuses (that Nyíri refers to as hard and soft power, respectively, p. 7). Although travel exposes citizens to new imaginaries, which could subvert the national narrative of modernity, and although most travelers encounter barriers and borders, which could call into question the dominant discourse of unfettered travel, such potential challenges have been averted by an active and inventive state.

The first three chapters comprehensively synthesize wide-ranging scholarship (both English- and Chinese-language sources) on, respectively, internal migration in China, Chinese international migration, and domestic and international Chinese tourism, including the author's previous works on Chinese international migration and on tourism. Nyíri explores how, in the Reform era, the state has gradually shifted away from a negative view of citizen mobility as something to be restricted to actively encouraging it as beneficial to development. This change of perspective has been accompanied by a loosening, but not total relinquishment, of administrative control over travel and travelers. For example, the government now recognizes the labor rights of China's internal migrant workers, though the household register (hukou) system persists to deny them urban welfare benefits. Further, the state has aligned with commerce and media to exert influence over its mobile citizens at home and abroad. It cultivates tourists using pedagogical tools (e.g., information campaigns at airports); through public ownership of and investment in tourist sites and tourist agencies; and via the National Tourism Administration, which sets protocols for tour groups. Even international tourism falls under the state's purview as a majority of Chinese arrange foreign travel using domestic tour companies, who in turn network with Chinese-owned agencies abroad. Likewise, Chinese embassies actively woo “new migrants” (p. 41), those who have settled abroad and no longer hold Chinese citizenship, through financial sponsorship of native place or alumni associations, overseas chambers of commerce, and Chinese-language newspapers. The transnational reach of the state is also extended through China-based Internet portals, which are restricted to the official Xinhua news service and content-monitored (p. 57), and which are frequently accessed by expatriates and émigrés to communicate with people in China.

The second half of the book delves more deeply into official discourses around mobility as an instrument of modernization and civilization, as well as a potential danger to be carefully monitored, and explores their circulation through popular culture and reception by individuals. Nyíri provides evidence that Chinese migrant workers, tourists, and expatriates alike internalize these doctrines to interpret their travel experiences in terms of development, modernity, and nationalism. Such hegemonic ideas are often invoked to counter negative stereotyping of Chinese travelers, or of the nation itself, by destination or host societies. A related discussion of how faith in modernization, not expansionist ambition, informs China's mission to bring development and “civilization” to poor nations is especially timely and provocative. Finally, Nyíri concludes that due to numerous pressures—the diversification of tourism (e.g., the rise of the independent traveler), changing émigré profiles (e.g., the increasingly youthful “new migrants” who move abroad for secondary education), and expansion of new media technologies—“the hegemony of officially endorsed discourse of modern nationhood is tenuous” (p. 167).

Given the book's broad scope, there was little attention to the vast inequalities among China's mobile citizens and how these differently impact relationships with the state as well as cultural identity. All travelers may encounter administrative obstacles and contradictory messages about mobility (p. 153), but surely some are better equipped to overcome them? The many intriguing examples in the book of individuals or state actors engaging in administrative subterfuges and even “uncivil” acts (e.g., adultery and cohabitation among migrants) to maximize their own or others' mobility could have been illuminated with a discussion of agency. Overall, Nyíri's original take on mobility is an important addition to Asian studies that is sure to inspire subsequent studies of the shape-shifting Chinese state and its increasingly mobile citizenry.