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Leveraging Liminality: The Border Town of Bao'an (Shenzhen) and the Origins of China's Reform and Opening

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

Taomo Zhou Open the ORCID record for Taomo Zhou [Opens in a new window]
Taomo Zhou*
Affiliation:
Taomo Zhou ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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Abstract

Located immediately north of Hong Kong, Shenzhen is China's most successful special economic zone (SEZ). Commonly known as the “social laboratory” of reform and opening, Shenzhen was the foremost frontier for the People's Republic of China's adoption of market principles and entrance into the world economy in the late 1970s. This article looks at prototypes of the SEZ in Bao'an County, the precursor to Shenzhen during the Mao era (1949–76). Between 1949 and 1978, Bao'an was a liminal space where state endeavors to establish a socialist economy were challenged by capitalist influences from the adjacent British Crown colony of Hong Kong. To create an enclave of exception to socialism, Communist cadres in Bao'an promoted individualized, duty-free cross-border trade and informal foreign investment schemes as early as 1961. Although beholden to the inward-looking planned economy and stymied by radical leftist campaigns, these local improvisations formed the foundation for the SEZ—the hallmark of Deng Xiaoping's economic statecraft.

Keywords

borderChinese Communist PartyCold WarfrontierHong Kongillegal migrationShenzhensmugglingspecial economic zonetrade
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 337 - 361
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Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2021

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