Table Of ContentLearning from Shenzhen
Learning from
Shenzhen
China’s Post- Mao Experiment from Special Zone
to Model City
edited by mary ann o donnell,
’
winnie wong, and
jonathan bach
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2017 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2017.
Printed in the United States of America
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 40109- 6 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 40112- 6 (paper)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 40126- 3 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226401263.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: O’Donnell, Mary Ann, 1964– author, editor. | Wong, Winnie Won Yin, author,
editor. | Bach, Jonathan P. G., author, editor.
Title: Learning from Shenzhen : China’s post-Mao experiment from special zone to
model city / edited by Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, and Jonathan Bach.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016. | “This volume
developed out of two conferences: ‘Shenzhen+China, Utopias+Dystopias,’ held at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011, and ‘Learning from Shenzhen,’
held at the Shenzhen Land Use Resources and Planning Commission in 2011 as
part of the Shenzhen Urbanism Biennale”—ECIP data. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016019384 | isbn 9780226401096 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780226401126 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226401263 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Shenzhen Shi (China)—Congresses. | Shenzhen Jingji Tequ
(Shenzhen Shi, China)—Congresses. | Urban renewal—China—Shenzhen
Shi—Congresses. | Free ports and zones—China—Congresses. | Municipal
government—China—Shenzhen Shi—Congresses.
Classification: lcc ht178.c62 s54 2016 | ddc 307.3/416095127—dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019384
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
FOREWORD vii
Ezra F. Vogel
INTRODUCTION:
Experiments, Exceptions, and Extensions 1
Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, and Jonathan Bach
part 1 Experiments (1979– 92)
1 Shenzhen: From Exception to Rule 23
Jonathan Bach
2 Heroes of the Special Zone: Modeling Reform and Its Limits 39
Mary Ann O’Donnell
3 The Tripartite Origins of Shenzhen: Beijing, Hong Kong, and Bao’an 65
Weiwen Huang
4 How to Be a Shenzhener: Representations of Migrant Labor in
Shenzhen’s Second Decade 86
Eric Florence
part 2 Exceptions (1992– 2004)
5 Laying Siege to the Villages: The Vernacular Geography of Shenzhen 107
Mary Ann O’Donnell
6 The Political Architecture of the First and Second Lines 124
Emma Xin Ma and Adrian Blackwell
7 “They Come in Peasants and Leave Citizens”:
Urban Villages and the Making of Shenzhen 138
Jonathan Bach
8 Sex Work, Migration, and Mental Health in Shenzhen 171
Willa Dong and Yu Cheng
vi contents
part 3 Extensions (2004– Present)
9 Shenzhen’s Model Bohemia and the Creative China Dream 193
Winnie Wong
10 Preparedness and the Shenzhen Model of Public Health 213
Katherine A. Mason
11 Simulating Global Mobility at Shenzhen “International” Airport 228
Max Hirsh
Conclusion: Learning from Shenzhen 250
Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, and Jonathan Bach
A Shenzhen Glossary 261
Contributors 265
Acknowledgments 269
Index 271
Foreword
ezra f. vogel
No city in the world has ever grown as rapidly as Shenzhen, China’s southern
gateway to the outside world. In 1978, when the Reform and Opening policy
was introduced in China, Shenzhen was a small town of some thirty thou-
sand people, surrounded by paddy fields. By 2010, it had a population of more
than ten million people— more than New York, America’s largest city. No tall
buildings were more than thirty years old. It glittered with modern stores, ho-
tels, offices, and restaurants.
Mao, convinced that the Chinese situation was ripe for Communism,
announced that a single spark can light a prairie fire. When many Chinese
were tired of the failures of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revo-
lution, Shenzhen became the spark that ignited reforms in China. In 1979 it
was made into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and became, as the authors of
this book relate, a new model for all of China. The story of Shenzhen in these
thirty years is an unusual mixture of urban development, of a rigid socialist
system stretched to incorporate a market economy. It became the crucible
where new ideas from the entire world flowed into a country that had stag-
nated for almost two decades. After 1979, Shenzhen became an experimental
ground, a key link in the transmission of new ideas where high Chinese high
officials came to visit to learn about market economies and observe the intro-
duction of modern architecture and industry.
Shenzhen brought together officials from Beijing, Guangdong provincial
headquarters in Guangzhou, and Bao’an County, as well as outsiders from
Hong Kong and the entire world. In Shenzhen, people who had been worlds
apart struggled to find ways to communicate with each other and groped for
a way to make the Reform and Opening policy work without a rebellion of
viii foreword
local people accustomed to older ways of getting things done. The story of
Shenzhen is a remarkable story, and we are fortunate now to have a full-
length book, edited by Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, and Jonathan
Bach, that brings together many of the strands, as migrants rushed in and
local planners tried to keep up with unprecedented urban growth.
Shenzhen on the Eve of Reform
When I first entered China in May 1973, five years before the Reform and
Opening policy began, I entered by foot, like other travelers, stepping into
China at Shenzhen, just across the bridge from Hong Kong. Because there
was no through train, we took the train from the Hong Kong rail station
in downtown Kowloon to the border of China. We disembarked at Lo Wu
(Luohu) and walked across the railroad bridge separating Hong Kong and
mainland China, entering China at Shenzhen. I then joined the whole train-
load of people walking across a railroad bridge into Shenzhen where, after
a few hours, we were allowed to board a train to Guangzhou. There was a
special waiting room and the border outpost was located a couple kilometers
away from the town of Shenzhen. While waiting several hours for the train,
we were served a Chinese meal that only two decades later would be consid-
ered well below acceptable standards.
That night, May 21, 1973, after I first saw Shenzhen, I dictated my notes on
an old- fashioned tape recorder, and when it was typed up it became my diary
of my first trip to China. About Shenzhen I said:
One can distinguish several groups of people in this border town. One group
is composed of officials connected with the customs. Most of these people
seem relatively young, and they include men as well as women. They live im-
mediately near the customs house on the west side. They seem to be moder-
ately well educated and fairly pleasant to the guests they serve. They make a
point of telling guests that they do not have to fill out forms and that no one
will look at their baggage.
A second group are the construction workers who live nearby and are ac-
tively engaged in carrying the raw materials, putting up the big bamboo poles,
and all the other work connected with the large new buildings [which were at
most several stories high, in old Soviet style, nothing like the new buildings
that would begin going up a few years later] which are going up to accommo-
date the increased traffic coming across the border.
A third group is the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and one can see them
marching in groups of about 15 or 20 with rifles over their shoulders. There are
also dark blue soldier- like uniforms worn by the public security personnel.
foreword ix
Public security personnel are divided into two main groups: One are those
connected with the railroad and serve under the direction of public security
personnel who are in turn divided into two main groups. One group is con-
nected with the railroad and serve under the direction of the provincial rail-
way administration. They work out of the paichusuo [the local police stations].
One paichusuo is located in the county capitol (xiancheng) roughly 3 kilome-
ters to the northwest of the customs house.
About 2 kilometers to the northeast of the customs house is the mar-
ket town of Shenzhen, the county seat with a population of somewhat over
30,000. In the market town are large numbers of state owned stores, and there
is a factory making cement, another making bricks, one making limited kinds
of machinery which is used to repair various tractors and other machinery.
There are also two small fertilizer factories which make various kinds of fertil-
izer. In addition to the large number of state- owned stores, there is a private
market held on the 1st, 4th, 7th, 11th, 14th, etc., throughout the month, where
farmers can bring the tiny amount of vegetables they grow on their private
plots. Most of the adults in the village were engaged in industry, commerce
and service work, serving the surrounding countryside. However, the town is
a separate administrative unit and is not the headquarters for the surrounding
communes. The county capitol (xian cheng) for Bao’an County is strictly an
administrative unit and does not contain the commercial facilities located in
the market town of Shenzhen. The commune headquarters are also located in
the county headquarters.
Most of the buildings connected with the market town seem to be old
buildings built before 1949, but many of the newer housing facilities [at most
several stories high, in old Communist style] immediately next to the customs
area have been built in the last several years to house the military and other
personnel connected with the customs. People in the area are mostly engaged
in rice growing, and one can see well- cared for ponds and rice paddies, much
as one can see on the train all the way to Guangzhou. The farmers grow chick-
ens, ducks and pigs, which are sold to the marketing co- op which are in turn
sold to the state and thence shipped elsewhere, much of it to Hong Kong. Most
of the chickens are owned privately, but most of the ducks and pigs are owned
by the production teams under the commune. The soldiers sometimes help
the farmers in the field, especially in the busy season. Harvesting of the rice is
normally done in late June.
Another group one sees is composed of about twenty girls with white
blouses and dark blue pants who live in Guangzhou and come to the border
every day on the morning train to the border, spend two or three hours in the
border area, and they go back to Guangzhou on the 1 p.m. train. One can see
them marching in loose formation in rows of two or three from one locality to
another. They appeared very neat and smiling and are among those honored
by the Youth League in Guangzhou as model workers.
