Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:49:45.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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.
Get access

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
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2016. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, Jonathan. 2011. “Modernity and the Urban Imagining in Economic Zones.” Theory, Culture & Society 28 (5): 98–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, Jonathan. 2017. “Shenzhen: From Exception to Rule.” In Learning from Shenzhen: China's Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City, edited by O'Donnell, Mary Ann, Wong, Winnie, and Jonathan Bach, , 23–38. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bao'an County Foreign Affairs Office. 1979. “Bao'an bianjing waishi huodong dashiji jielu 1977–1979.” In Jianguo Sanshinian Shenzhen dangan wenxian yanyi di si juan [hereafter referred to as Jianguo 4], Shenzhen Municipal Archives, 2449–64. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe.Google Scholar
BCCP (Bao'an County CCP Central Committee). 1970. “Bao'an xian geming weiyuanhui guanyu xuexi Dazhai gan xiyang de guihua.” December 15. In Jianguo 4, 2575–81.Google Scholar
BCCP (Bao'an County CCP Central Committee). n.d. “Gaoju Mao Zedong sixiang weida hongqi hengsao yiqie ‘xiang feng’ chouqi.” In Jianguo 4, 2400–2412.Google Scholar
BCLGCC (Bao'an County Local Gazetteer Compilation Committee). 1996. Bao'an xian zhi. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Brown, Jeremy, and Johnson, Matthew. 2015. “Introduction.” In Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China's Era of High Socialism, edited by Brown, Jeremy and Johnson, Matthew, 1–15. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, John P. 1987. “Immigration from China and the Future of Hong Kong.” Asian Survey 27 (6): 661–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delin, Cai, ed. 1997. Shengang guanxi shihua. Shenzhen: Haitian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Carroll, John Mark. 2007. A Concise History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Chan, Anita, Madsen, Richard, and Unger, Jonathan. (1984) 2009. Chen Village: The Recent History of a Peasant Community in Mao's China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chen Bing'An. 2001. Da Taogang. Hong Kong: Zhonghe Publishing.Google Scholar
Chen Bing'An. 2017. Interview by author. November 25, Shenzhen.Google Scholar
Chen, Xiangming. 1995. “The Evolution of Free Economic Zones and the Recent Development of Cross-National Growth Zones.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19 (4): 593–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheung, Gary Ka-wai. 2009. Hong Kong's Watershed: The 1967 Riots. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald, and Wang, Ning. 2012. How China Became Capitalist. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dikötter, Frank. 2010. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Du, Juan. 2020. The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China's Instant City. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bao, Fang. 1997. “Shenzhen jingji tequ chuchuang shiqi de shijian he renshi.” In Jianguo 4, 3096–3128.Google Scholar
Xiaocai, Feng. 2015. “Yi jiu wu ba nian zhi yi jiu liu san nian zhonggong ziyou shichang zhengce yanjiu.” Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu 2:38–52.Google Scholar
GDCCP (Guangdong Provincial CCP Central Committee). 1973. “Guanyu chuli toudu waitao wenti de jige zhengce guiding (zhaiyao).” In Jianguo 4, 2481–83.Google Scholar
GDRC (Guangdong Provincial Revolution Committee). 1973. “Guanyu Bao'an Zhuhai bianfang diqu youguan jingji zhengce de guiding (zhaiyao).” August 10. In Jianguo 4, 2688–92.Google Scholar
GDRC (Guangdong Provincial Revolution Committee). 1978. “Guanyu Bao'an Zhuhai liangxian waimao jidi jianshe he shizheng guihua shexiang de baogao.” October 23. In Zhongguo gongchandang Shenzhen lishi, vol. 2, 338–43. Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 2012.Google Scholar
Gerth, Karl. 2020. Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gewirtz, Julian. 2017. Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
GLGCC (Guangdong Local Gazetteer Compilation Committee). 2001. Guangdong sheng zhi gongan zhi. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Mu, Gu. 1979. “Xianzai shi juexing de shihou le.” May 16. In Jianguo 4, 2800–2803.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Peter. 2018. “Rethinking the Origins of China's Reform Era: Hong Kong and the 1970s Revival of Sino-US Trade.” Twentieth-Century China 43 (1): 67–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, Denise Y. 2020. “Hong Kong, China: Border as Palimpsest.” Made in China Journal, September–December. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/02/08/hong-kong-china-the-border-as-palimpsest/ (accessed February 18, 2021).Google Scholar
Lardy, Nicholas. 1987. “Economic Recovery and the 1st Five-Year Plan.” In The Cambridge History of China, vol. 14, The People's Republic, Part 1: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1949–1965, edited by MacFarquhar, Roderick and Fairbank, John K., 360–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Madokoro, Laura. 2016. Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mark, Chi-Kwan. 2007. “The ‘Problem of People’: British Colonials, Cold War Powers, and the Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, 1949–1962.” Modern Asia Studies 41 (6): 1145–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Christopher. 2015. “From Foreign Concessions to Special Economic Zones: Decolonization and Foreign Investment in Twentieth-Century Asia.” In Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence, edited by James, Leslie and Leake, Elisabeth, 239–54. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Mok, Florence. 2020. “Chinese Illicit Immigration into Colonial Hong Kong, c. 1970–1980.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Published online November 30. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2020.1848402.Google Scholar
Nanfang ribao. 1956. “Xianggang dangju bixu liji tingzhi dui Zhongguo renmin jinchu Xianggang de wuli xianzhi.” September 4.Google Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2015. Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978–1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Neveling, Patrick. 2015. “Export Processing Zones, Special Economic Zones, and the Long March of Capitalist Development Policies during the Cold War.” In Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence, edited by James, Leslie and Leake, Elisabeth, 63–84. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Neveling, Patrick. 2020. “De-escalating the Centre: Urban Futures and Special Economic Zones Beyond Poststructuralism's Neoliberal Imaginations.” In Re-centering the City: Global Mutations of Socialist Modernity, edited by Bach, Jonathan and Murawski, Michal, 224–31. London: UCL Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Donnell, Mary Ann, Wong, Winnie, and Bach, Jonathan. 2017. “Introduction: Experiments, Exceptions, and Extensions.” In Learning from Shenzhen: China's Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City, edited by O'Donnell, Mary Ann, Wong, Winnie, and Bach, Jonathan, 1–22. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogle, Vanessa. 2017. “Archipelago Capitalism: Tax Havens, Offshore Money, and the State, 1940s–1970.” American Historical Review 122 (5): 1431–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oi, Jean C. 1999. Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 2000. “Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia.” Theory, Culture and Society 17 (4): 55–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 2004. “The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty.” Journal of East Asian Studies 4 (1): 69–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palan, Ronan. 2003. The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places and Nomad Millionaires. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Parrilo, Nicholas. 2013. Against the Profit Motive: The Salary Revolution in American Government, 1780–1940. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth, and Heilmann, Sebastian. 2011. “The Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in China.” In Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China, edited by Perry, Elizabeth and Heilmann, Sebastian, 11–15. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Reardon, Lawrence C. 1996. “The Rise and Decline of China's Export Processing Zones.” Journal of Contemporary China 5 (13): 281–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reeves, Madeleine. 2014. Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyes, Victoria. 2019. Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Priscilla. 2016. “Cold War Hong Kong: Juggling Opposing Forces and Identities.” In Hong Kong in the Cold War, edited by Roberts, Priscilla and Carroll, John M., 26–59. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
SBDA and SBDRCO (Shenzhen Bao'an District Archives and Shenzhen Bao'an District Records Compilation Office). n.d. Da Taogang dang'an jiemi. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Sheffer, Edith. 2011. Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Museum, Shenzhen, ed. 1999. Shenzhen tequ shi. Beijing: renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Shirk, Susan L. 1993. The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, Vivienne. 1998. The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politics. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Siu, Helen, and Faure, David. 1995. “Introduction.” In Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, edited by Faure, David and Siu, Helen F., 1–19. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
SMA (Shenzhen Municipal Archives). 2005a. Jianguo Sanshinian Shenzhen dangan wenxian yanyi di er juan. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe.Google Scholar
SMA (Shenzhen Municipal Archives). 2005b. Jianguo Sanshinian Shenzhen dangan wenxian yanyi di san juan. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe.Google Scholar
SMA (Shenzhen Municipal Archives). 2005c. Jianguo Sanshinian Shenzhen dangan wenxian yanyi di si juan [Jianguo 4]. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe.Google Scholar
SMGRCO (Shenzhen Municipal Government Records Compilation Office). 2003. Zhongguo gongchandang Shenzhen lishi dashiji 1924–1978. Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
SMGRCO (Shenzhen Municipal Government Records Compilation Office). 2012. Zhongguo gongchandang Shenzhen lishi. Vol. 2. Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
Szonyi, Michael. 2017. The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yitao, Tao and Zhiguo, Lu, eds. 2010. Zhongguo jingji tequ shiyao. Beijing: shangwu yinshu she.Google Scholar
Zhu, Tao. 1960. “Guanyu guodu shiqi de guilv wenti de shangque.” Renmin ribao, August 5. 1960.Google Scholar
Qiao, Tu. 2008. Yuan Geng zhuan: Gaige xianchang 1978–1984. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe.Google Scholar
Thai, Philip. 2018. China's War on Smuggling. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Ezra F. 1969. Canton under Communism: Programs and Politics in A Provincial Capital, 1949–1968. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vogel, Ezra F. 1990. One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vogel, Ezra F. 2011. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew. 2015. China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wemheuer, Felix. 2019. A Social History of Maoist China: Conflict and Change, 1949–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Winnie Won Yin. 2017. “Speculative Authorship in the City of Fakes.” Current Anthropology 58 (15): S103–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nansheng, Wu. 1979. “Guanyu jiakuai Shenzhen jianshe bixu jiejue de jige wenti.” October 14. In Jianguo 4, 2812–17.Google Scholar
Zhongxun, Xi. 1979. “Xi Zhongxun tongzhi zai Huiyang diwei fan toudu waitao huiyi shang de jianghua yaodian.” June 20. In Jianguo 4, 2506–11.Google Scholar
Donglian, Xiao. 2015. “Guanyu Zhongguo dangdai gaige kaifangshi yanjiu ruogan wenti de sikao.” Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu 1:76–84.Google Scholar
Yang, Dali. 1996. Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jisheng, Yang. 2009. Mubei: Zhongguo liushi niandai da jihuang jishi. Hong Kong: tiandi tushu.Google Scholar
Zhan, Yanqin. 2006a. “Gaige kaifang de chuci changshi: liushi niandai Bao'an de kaifang shijian jiqi yingxiang.” In Shenzhen dangshi yanjiu lunwen ji, edited by SMGRCO, 251–63. Shenzhen: Haitian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhan, Yanqin. 2006b. “Liushi niandai chu Bao'an bianfang guanli zhengce de tiaozheng jiqi yingxiang.” In Shenzhen dangshi yanjiu lunwen ji, edited by SMGRCO, 264–75. Shenzhen: Haitian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhan, Yanqin. 2010. “Li Fulin de ‘Liyong xianggang jianshe Bao'an’ de changshi ji yingxiang.” Guangdong dangshi 2010 (2): 15–19.Google Scholar
Ziyang, Zhao. 2009. Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang. Translated and edited by Igantius, Adi, Pu, Bao, and Chiang, Renee. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Xiaofeng, Zheng and Ling, Shu. 2007. Tao Zhu Zhuan. Beijing: zhongyang dangshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
“Zhonghua renmin gongheguo Guangdong sheng jingji tequ tiaoli.” 1980. August 26. In Jianguo 4, 3031–35.Google Scholar
“Zhongyang shujichu tongzhi tingqu Guangdong gongzuo huibao de tanhua jilu.” 1980. September 24–25. In Jianguo 4, 3036–48.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1955a. “Huang shuji zai Bao'an xian sanji ganbu kuoda huiyi shang de baogao.” December 4. 005-A003-001-001.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1955b. “Bao'an xian huafen bianfang qu shixing bianfang jumin zheng tongxingzheng zhidu gongzuo zai xian sanji ganbu huiyi shang de baogao.” December 21. 005-A003-001-002.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1957a. “Guanyu dui renmin qunzhong ‘fangkuan’ laiwang Xianggang wenti de yijian.” June 8. 005-A005-005-005.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1957b. “Guanyu fangkuan renmin qunzhong qianwang Xianggang de yijian.” July 13. 005-A005-005-007Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1957c. “Guanyu Bao'an xian Shatoujiao zhen shichang renkou qianyi yijian.” December 23. 005-A005-008-017.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1959a. “Guanyu jing Bao'an xian toudu Xianggang wenti de diaocha baogao.” January 28. 005-A007-003-004.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1959b. “Zhonggong Bao'an xian guanyu bianfang gongzuo ruogan juti zhengce wenti de qingshi baogao.” June 26. 005-A007-003.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1961a. “Guanyu bianyan gongshe chukou daocao huan feiliao jinkou guanli wenti de tongzhi.” August 2. 005-A009-002-6.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1961b. “Xianwei zhuanpi Ji Fengting tongzhi zai jingji gongzuo huiyi shang de zongjie baogao.” August 23. 005-A009-006-14Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1961c. “Guanyu shidang fangkuan bianfang guanli zhengce qieshi jiejue bianfang diqu renmin qunzhong huifu he fazhan shengchan zhong bixu jiejue de wenti de baogao.” August 27. 005-A009-002-009.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1962a. “Bao'an xian paigou yundong de qingkuang baogao.” January 14. 005-A010-002-20.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1962b. “Guanyu zuzhi ganbu qunzhong taolun xianwei zhiding de jixiang shengchan zhengce buchong guiding de tongzhi.” May 10. 005-A010-001-2.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1962c. “Bao'an xian guanyu dangqian bianyan qingkuang de baogao.” May 10. 005-A010-003-12.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1962d. “Xianwei guanyu guanche zhixing ‘zhengque chuli wailiu renyuan jiqi jiashu he zaijia sheyuan de huli wenti de yijian’ de tongzhi.” July 15. 005-A010-001-10.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1962e. “Guanyu Bao'an xian bianjing jumin he shengchandui xiedai wupin guanli wenti.” January 20. 005-A009-002-2.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1964a. “Bao'an xian fangren chu Xianggang yao wuzi de qingkuang zonghe.” November 24. 005-A009-009-5Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1964b. “Guanyu Bao'an xian weifan zhengce qingkuang de jiancha baogao.” December 5. 005-A009-009-4.Google Scholar
BCA (Bao'an County Archives). 1979. “Huibao tigang.” September 24. File number unavailable.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1951. “Shatian chuli yijian: Bao'an xian disiqu Fenghuang xiang dianxing diaocha.” February. 236-1-7-71.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1953. “Bao'an Xihai fadong yumin jingguo.” June 26. 204-5-19-139～144.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1959a. “Guanyu woxian kaizhan renmin jingji shenghuo xuanchuan jiaoyu yundong de zongjie baogao.” May 28. 214-1-215－095～098.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1959b. “Guanyu jianli Zhongshan Shunde Bao'an Dongguan sige waimao zhongdian xian chubu guihua yijian.” 302-1-116-1～15Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1962. “Bao'an xian Shekou gongshe yuye shengchandui feifa jieyun jinkou shangpin de qingkuang he chuli yijian.” February 8. 302-1-160-127～129.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1963. “Cujin nongcun geming hua de zhendi: Bao'an xian nongcun julebu diaocha.” June 18. 232-2-310-1～31.Google Scholar
GPA (Guangdong Provincial Archives). 1974. “Guanyu Bao'an Zhuhai xian jianli waimao chukou shangpin shengchan jidi de qingshi baogao.” August 19. 253-2-162-67～79.Google Scholar
HKPRO (Hong Kong Public Records Office). 1962. “Overt Intelligence Report no. 0280/62.” May 25. HKRS742-14-1.Google Scholar
HKPRO (Hong Kong Public Records Office). 1967. Hong Kong's Border with China. Hong Kong: Government Printer.Google Scholar