This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and many media have written related articles.
Some time ago, I went to Shenzhen specifically. After a few days, I had a more direct question:
What exactly does Shenzhen mean to China?
Is it a super city with 3.68 trillion GDP? Yes, but it is far from summarizing Shenzhen.
If you understand Shenzhen, you cannot be limited to Shenzhen, but should be placed in the coordinate system of China and even the world.
Understanding Shenzhen, you must also put it in the macro historical background.
In 1978, a craze for overseas inspections emerged nationwide. Chinese people are eager to see what the outside world looks like.
Among them, the Western Europe (France, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, West Germany) delegation led by senior officials set off on May 2 and returned to China on June 6. The 36-day itinerary has had a profound impact.
Although the members of the delegation are all senior state cadres, they still make a lot of jokes.
When eating ice cream, I am afraid of coldness, so some people say, "You can heat it up."
But it is more of a strong shock to the reality gap: the labor productivity of other companies is several times higher or even dozens of times higher than that of China.
For example, the Solmer Steel Plant in Marseille, France produces an annual output of 3.5 million tons of steel. From the entry of iron ore to the rolling of steel, it has basically achieved automation, with only 7,000 employees in the entire factory. At that time, Wuhan Iron and Steel Company's annual output was 2.3 million tons, excluding mines, and had 67,000 employees...
The gap is also reflected in more details.
A reporter from the Central Newspaper recalled that once I returned to Beijing in 1984, I saw a group of people in the office looking around a piece of paper: eight inches square, snow-white and soft, with extremely exquisite patterns imprinted on it.
The one who brought this piece of paper back was a reporter from the newspaper stationed in West Berlin. When I told the purpose of this paper, I was even more shocked: this was the hand wiper paper in the public toilet.
" Foreigners are so generous and wasteful!" These reporters who have seen big scenes sighed like this.
La Defense CBD, Paris, France in the 1980s
"Close the door, you can't develop."
When correctly recognizes the gap, China bursts out with unprecedented pursuit force.
Building special economic zones is an important step in reform and opening up.
In 1980, the National People's Congress approved the establishment of four special economic zones: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen.
The famous "window theory" of Deng Gong shows that he expects the special economic zones to play a vanguard in the national economic development.
He said that the SAR is a window, a window of technology, a window of management, a window of knowledge, and a window of foreign policy.
Shenzhen City Scenery
In 1982, Shenzhen started the construction of the first tallest building in China, the Guomao Building at that time, with a height of 160 meters and 53 floors.
During the construction process, a miracle in the history of world architecture was created: one floor is built in 3 days.
At that time, in Hong Kong, the fastest speed for building buildings was one floor per day in 5 days, and in the United States, it was one floor per day in 4 days.
Now, when talking about Shenzhen, many media will talk about "Shenzhen speed".
But what is behind "Shenzhen Speed"?
Actually, it's very simple:
Mark mechanism.
Shenzhen Guomao Building, the first time in the country, has adopted the public bidding method to select suppliers.
Shenzhen Guomao Building Topped
After the contractor obtained the project, he completely broke the "big pot rice" system, and he worked hard and got more money, and the bonus was not topped off.
Workers in other places earn more than ten yuan a month, and at the most, only a few dozen yuan, but at the International Trade Construction Site, workers can reach more than 600 yuan a month. You should know that at that time, the average annual salary of Shanghai employees was only about 1,200 yuan.
Previously, cement, steel, and timber were operated by the state and the building materials department.
But the tall buildings that rose from Shenzhen have broken the situation of "unifying the country". Steel, cement, wood and other raw materials can be sold publicly on the market and traded freely.
Shenzhen Guomao Building
On January 24, 1984, before the Spring Festival, Deng Gong visited the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone for the first time.
Looking at the International Trade Building that was rising from the ground, he said happily: "I have seen it clearly."
A few days later, in Guangzhou, he wrote an inscription for Shenzhen again:
Shenzhen's development and experience prove that our policy of establishing special economic zones is correct.
This calmed the controversy about Shenzhen at that time.
Deng Gong said that he "sees everything clearly". What he sees clearly is not only the tall buildings, but also the path of China's development: the market economy.
In 1980, Shenzhen carried out a pilot reform of the labor contract system, taking the lead in the country to break the traditional system of fixed employment;
In November 1984, Shenzhen took the lead in canceling food coupons in the country;
In November 1985, Shenzhen established the first foreign exchange adjustment center in the country;
In April 1987, "China Merchants Bank" was listed in Shenzhen, which is the first joint-stock commercial bank in mainland China;
In December 1987, the Shenzhen Municipal Government publicly auctioned a piece of land for the first time, which was also the first time that land use rights have entered the market as assets in China;
…
Today, these policy tools and governance methods that we have become accustomed to have come from Shenzhen's experiments.
But only those who experience it know the difficulty.
Tell a story.
At that time, a 600-meter-long Shunan wharf was to be built in Shekou, Shenzhen.
But the project progress was not smooth, and one of the tasks was to pull soil. However, workers can only transport twenty or thirty trucks of soil when they go to work for 8 hours a day. Because, under the planned economy, everyone had a "iron rice bowl", and they worked more and had less, and their wages were paid as much as possible.
At that time, the engineering party tried to get a quota overproduction reward system: as long as more than 40 cars of soil are transported every day, a reward of 4 cents for each car exceeding 1 car.
The workers were still the same group of people, but before they could go to work, they arrived at the construction site, and pulled up to 130 trucks of dirt a day. In order to make money, I even don’t want to go to the bathroom, for fear of delaying time.
Project accelerates exponentially.
However, some people complain, and even higher authorities ordered the investigation to "indiscriminately issued bonuses."
More than ten years later, the first ruling in Shenzhen summarized in an interview with the media:
(Shenzhen) Special Zone was able to be completed because of the introduction of a market economy. Its contribution to the whole country also lies in the introduction of experiments and practices of the market economy.
Shennan Avenue
Lee Kuan Yew once said that China cannot be without Shenzhen. Shenzhen Special Zone is an important test site for China's modernization construction.
In addition to the macro-policy level mentioned above, there are actually more micro-level aspects, which subtly spread some innovative concepts on China's land.
Today, at No. 2079, Dongmen North Road, Luohu District, there is a seemingly ordinary three-star standard hotel: Shenzhen Zhuyuan Hotel.
However, it is the first hotel in mainland China to fully adopt the Hong Kong-style employment and salary system, and has also launched the reform of the employment system and wage system of my country's catering service industry.
At that time, Hong Kong businessmen and Shenzhen catering service companies cooperated to build the hotel.
But we encountered trouble as soon as we opened, so that Hong Kong businessmen almost withdrew their investment.
What's going on?
At that time, Hong Kong businessmen required management in accordance with international hotel standards, rooms must be cleaned every day, perfume must be sprayed after cleaning the bathroom, waitresses must put on makeup, and all staff must greet guests with a smile.
But, employees strongly oppose: applying lipstick is a bourgeois lady style, and bending over to customers is a low-level fun.
Moreover, employees often arrive late and leave early, and chat and do not work.
In the end, six employees had to be "fired", and their wages were linked to their benefits. If they were not done well, they could be fired.
That year, Zhuyuan Hotel made a profit of 630,000 yuan, and the second year was 1.5 million yuan, and the employees also increased their salary exponentially.
The highest national personnel department specifically summarizes the experience of Zhuyuan Hotel and promotes the marketization of labor employment across the country.
Zhuyuan Hotel in the past
There are many examples of such enterprise micro-management.
Now, everyone envies Shenzhen's high-tech industry.
But in fact, the first batch of investors attracted by Shenzhen were only small bosses in Hong Kong, and most of the projects were severely polluted printing and dyeing industries.
So, Shenzhen's industrial structure adjustment is one step ahead of the whole country, or even two or three steps.
In 1993, Shenzhen established an intangible asset appraisal firm, which is to scientifically evaluate how much patents, technology and software can be worth and form a technology market.
At that time, there was a company producing hard magnetic heads in Shenzhen. Several foreign personnel wanted to join, but required technical joint-stock system.
But there was no precedent in China at that time. Shenzhen supports foreign technicians to hold about 30% of the shares.
Since then, Shenzhen has begun to develop high-tech industries by investing in technology and other intangible assets.
The most successful one is Huawei. All employees' shareholding has also become one of the core guarantees of Huawei's innovation.
In October 1999, the first China International High-tech Achievements Fair was held in Shenzhen, and now it has become the "first exhibition of science and technology in China".
In March 2019, the "Regulations on Intellectual Property Protection of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone" was officially implemented, and it is the first comprehensive intellectual property protection regulations in the country.
This kind of care and protection of talents and knowledge has produced fruitful results today.
Two days ago, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the 2025 Global Innovation Index in Hong Kong, and the "Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou" innovation cluster reached its peak for the first time. Among them, Shenzhen has contributed the most core strength in terms of patent number, R&D investment, and the activity of innovative enterprises, and is the biggest promoter of this innovation cluster's top.
The top 10 innovation clusters and their footprints in 2025
I am from Shenzhen. Over the past 45 years, Shenzhen has opened its mind to accept thousands of outsiders.
Some of these people stayed and continued to work hard, but more people were nourished by the fertile soil of Shenzhen and fell across the country like dandelions, bringing knowledge, technology, and management.
The most famous one is probably Zhou Qunfei of Lens Technology.
She was born in Xiangxiang, Hunan and went south to work in Shenzhen at the age of 17.
In 1993, at the age of 23, she started her business with only 20,000 Hong Kong dollars. In 2006, she returned to Changsha, Hunan, and was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange GEM in 2015, with more than 130,000 employees.
The same story also includes Zheng Xiaorong, Kexiang Co., Ltd.
In fact, stories about returning home from Shenzhen are everywhere, even on the Internet.
These millions of former "workers" use what they see and learn in Shenzhen to change themselves, their hometowns, and China.
Representative enterprises in Shenzhen
There is a TV series in which there is such a plot.
In the early days of reform and opening up, the country planned to introduce advanced technologies and equipment from American automobile factories.
But our automobile factory director opposes: because the technology in the factory is the most advanced in the world and there is no need to introduce foreign technology at all. When visiting workshops in the United States, core secrets will be leaked.
But what this factory manager called "the most advanced technology" has only 5,000 cars produced annually in the entire factory.
The annual output of the US automobile factory is as high as 2 million vehicles. The personnel of our automobile factory are shocked on the spot and are behind without knowing it.
But forty or fifty years later, BYD, headquartered in Shenzhen, did help China Automobile achieve a counterattack and become a veritable world champion of new energy vehicles.
Lee Kuan Yew visited Shenzhen many times during his lifetime because he believed that "the bright future of Shenzhen is also the future of China."
In Shenzhen, see the future of China.
So, Shenzhen has never been a city that can be simply summarized by GDP numbers, although this number is already eye-catching enough.
