Observe China’s Past, Present and Future from the Three Landmarks in Shenzhen

Since the outline development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area was unveiled in the late spring of 2019, it soon became the most frequently discussed topic of China’s economy, attracting attention at home and abroad. Upon release of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area Plan, some Japanese Commercial Officers in Southern China invited scholars from Shenzhen and Hong Kong for an in-depth discussion in this regard at a gourmet Japanese restaurant in a newly built commercial building located at Nashan District of Shenzhen. All parties measured Tokyo Bay Area against the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area in full length while enjoying dedicate seafood air-freighted from Japan. These Japanese diplomats based in Guangzhou said that they had to spend at least half of their time in Shenzhen because of the never-ending visits by Japanese parliamentarians and business tycoons to this vibrant city. Japan’s business investment in Guangzhou mainly focuses on the automobile industry, but now more people are drown to Shenzhen for its thriving high-tech industry as well as flourishing innovation capability.

In the year of 2018, Shenzhen outperformed Hong Kong in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the very first time. It is noticeable that Hong Kong’s GDP used to be 178 times of Shenzhen’s GDP back in the year of 1979. After 40 years, China has decided to build Shenzhen into a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics, in contrast to which Hong Kong is now deep in recession with the prolonged political and social instability triggering ongoing street riots.

Observers with unbiased views would accept the fact that Shenzhen’s development miracle is the most shining part of the rapidly rising Chinese economy. Regretfully, few observers or scholars are willing to devote their time and efforts to studying Shenzhen’s past, present and future as an independent study object. The overlook of Shenzhen, whether being intentional or unintentional, will not only overshadow people’s cognition of the “China Miracle”, but also lead to misinterpretation of the next era of globalization shaped by China.

Observers have their own unique angles and approaches to study Shenzhen, but for common readers, the easiest way to know Shenzhen is to begin with its three renowned landmarks, Shekou, Huaqiangbei (Huaqiang North Commercial Area) and Nanshan, where you can trace the footprints of Shenzhen’s breakthroughs and rise while getting a clear glimpse of Shenzhen’s future potential and global influence.

40 years ago, despite the end of the Great Cultural Revolution in China, most Chinese people remained so conservative that any discussions on money would be frowned upon and seen as promoting capitalism. As a result, when the giant slogan “Time is Money” appeared on the streets of Shekou, the whole nation was shocked. “Crossing the river by feeling for the stones” is the famous quote from Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of China’s reform and opening up, Shekou can be said the first stone in the river for opening up China’s economy to the outside world. In early 1980s, Fu Gaoyi (Ezra.F.Vogel) spent 7 months in Guangdong accomplishing his book “One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong Under Reform”, for which purpose he has interviewed Yuan Geng, the founder of Shekou. Shekou is also home to one of the first Sino-foreign joint venture enterprises post China’s reform and opening up, which is a large-scale factory specializing in manufacturing glassware by introducing plate glass patent technology from Pittsburgh.

In the 40-year history of Shenzhen’s rise, if Shekou is deemed as a landmark in the experimental stage marking the beginning of “crossing the river by feeling for the stones”, then Huaqiangbei represents the rising stage of Shenzhen. Hailed as “China’s No.1 electronic street”, it covers an area of only 1.45 square kilometers, but stands out as the most influential computer hardware and electronic component market in Mainland China and has become the totem of Chinese manufacturing in the electronics industry. In the era when Shekou was leading Shenzhen’s growth, Shenzhen and even the entire Guangdong Province mainly undertook industrial transfer of Hong Kong, nothing more than labor-intensive industries such as manufacturing of toys, clothing, and shoes. But the booming Huaqiangbei has made Shenzhen and its neighboring city Dongguan rise up as the manufacturing hub of the global information industry and earned their entrance ticket for the arena of technology-intensive industries. Back in the old days, it was believed that a single slight move in Huaqiangbei may affect the global information industry chain as a whole. The Huaqiangbei’s flourishment not only incubated nearly all the best Chinese electronics industry distributors, but also symbolizes the success of market economy in China. Some Western scholars once described Shenzhen’s success as using socialist chess pieces to play capitalist chess, in which sense Huaqiangbei is definitely one of the most crucial chessboards.

While Huaqiangbei has now become the bridgehead for Chinese electronic products to go global, Nanshan, or more accurately, Yuehai Street represents a whole new level of economic rise of Shenzhen and even China. ZTE, Huawei, DJI, and Tencent, these world’s leading technology companies now catching global attention are all registered in Yuehai Street, Nanshan District of Shenzhen, which is dubbed as “China’s most powerful street office” by Chinese netizens.

The global influence of Shenzhen’s industrial upgrade has been time and again proven enormous. Shenzhen is no longer the wasteland that undertook industrial transfer from Europe, America, Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong 40 years ago. Shenzhen and Hong Kong have gone beyond the upstream and downstream relationship of a vertical industrial chain or competitive relationship of a parallel industrial chain. Shenzhen is now in the course of projecting its global influence, exporting self-innovated products, and exporting capital and technology. The success of Shenzhen’s innovative industries represents China’s ability to shape a new type of globalization.

Shenzhen has shifted from the trailblazer in China’s exploration of economic marketization to the pioneer in China’s expedition to a new type of globalization. To correctly understand the past and present of the “China Miracle”, you have to study Shenzhen while to keep up with the future of the “China Miracle” and seize the opportunity of the new type of globalization, Shenzhen is the city you can’t miss.