Keeping watch over an economic miracle
Deng Xiaoping statue in Shenzhen honors the architect of China’s reform and opening-up policy
On the hilltop of Lotus Park in Shenzhen’s downtown, a grand statue stands sentinel. The 6-meter-tall bronze likeness of Deng Xiaoping overlooks the whole city, as if the “chief architect” of China’s reform and opening-up policy is watching every step of progress by his brainchild.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from all across the world visit the site, hoping to get a better understanding of how Deng and the policy he initiated led Shenzhen to achieve an economic miracle.
Huang Songmei has visited the statue four times. The 66-year-old retiree from eastern Jiangxi province first came to Shenzhen 28 years ago, but it was not until 2012 that she moved to the city permanently with her son.
“Every time I stand here, I can recall my youth. There was no adequate food, no television, no air conditioners, no mobile phones. It was the reform and opening-up policy initiated by Deng that made our lives much better than before,” she said.
The idea of erecting the Deng statue in Shenzhen originated in 1994,
two years after the late Chinese leader made his historic tour to Shenzhen, known as the “Southern Tour”. During his trip, he made a famous speech, calling for further emancipation of the mind and acceleration of reform and opening-up.
After three years of examinations and negotiations, the local government finally decided to place the
statue in Lotus Park.
However, the project was later shelved, as more than a dozen Chinese cities that had been selected as pilot areas for opening-up, applied for the right to raise a statue of Deng following his death in February 1997. None, however, was approved.
It was not until 2000, when Shenzhen celebrated the 20th anniversary
of its founding that the plan was put on the agenda once again. In November that year, the Deng statue was completed.
Teng Wenjin, major designer of the statue, says the original design was based on a photo of Deng that was taken during his Southern Tour, a picture that showed him just standing. Designers later changed it to show him walking, which Teng said carries a special meaning that “the steps of carrying out reform and opening-up should be bold”.
With the spirit of openness, innovation and entrepreneurship, Shenzhen has developed into a metropolis with a strong private economy. It is home to a number of globally well-known tech enterprises, including telecom equipment supplier Huawei, internet giant Tencent and drone maker DJI.
Ezra Vogel, former director of Fairbank East Asia Center and the author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, said in a 2020 interview that the things which Shenzhen has achieved over the past 40 years were unique.
Also known by his Chinese name Fu Gaoyi, the late American Sinologist added at the time that Shenzhen rose from an impoverished prefecture to a metropolis with a population of over 20 million people in four decades, noting that there is no other place in the world that has developed so rapidly.
Special economic zones represented by Shenzhen are the vanguard of China’s development, he said.