The bold idea of late reformer Deng Xiaoping to choose the border town of Shenzhen (then Bao'an County) to be his laboratory for a vast experiment -- of making it China's first export-oriented special zone -- was taken as a joke by many Western journalists, who, in 1980, visited what is now Luohu District.

Melinda Liu, one of US magazine Newsweek's most experienced foreign correspondents, was among a group of Western reporters invited to a groundbreaking ceremony in Luohu just across the border from Hong Kong.

"Most of us looked askance at the patch of mud that was supposed to be China's future. Many thought the idea was a joke," Liu said in a memoir published recently.

Thirty years later Shenzhen is a metropolis of 12 million people, and still growing fast. The huts have been replaced by office blocks.

The magic of Shenzhen has far exceeded the world's expectations. But few people know the inside stories of the city's development, and the bumpy path of its transformation.

Deng names it special zone

The establishment of the special zone, which took two years, was inspired by a proposal by the Ministry of Commerce to set up an industrial zone in Shekou in 1978, which was hailed by Guangdong. In August, the provincial government put the idea in a report submitted to the Central Government, mapping out plans to make counties of Bao'an and Zhuhai (now Zhuhai City), which borders Macao, export bases.

In January 1979, Bao'an County was renamed Shenzhen City. In the following month, Shantou was added to the report as a new export base, on the insistence of Wu Nansheng, then Party chief of Guangdong.

The report won wide acclaim from top leaders of the Central Government during a meeting between April 5 and 28 in 1979. But attendees were divided over naming the bases -- "export-oriented processing zones," "free trade zones" or "special zones" -- before the paramount leader Deng made the final decision.

"Let's call them 'special zones.' We used to have special political zones during the civil war, such as the revolutionary bases in Northwest China," Deng said. "But we (the Central Government) don't have money (to support the zones). You (the zones) have to depend on your own and blaze a new trail."

Opponents completes name

The opponents to the explosive trial of establishing export-oriented special zones in the coastal cities of Guangdong and Fujian, sanctioned by the State Council in July 1979, never realized their arguments ended up as contribution to the opposed instead.

"What are these special zones? The revolutionary bases in Northwest China in the past were special political zones, not special economic zones," they questioned.

The "special economic zone" term lightened reformists.

"We all like the name of 'special economic zone' because it can better define city functions," then Guangdong Party chief Wu Nansheng said in a report to the State Council. "These zones need to build commercial and cultural facilities, not only factories."

Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou were approved to be special economic zones Aug. 26, 1980.

Decisive war

Where to begin the transformation of the then abjectly poor Shenzhen, which received 30 million yuan in start-up money from the Central Government in the form of bank loans, was an imminent issue facing Wu, who was appointed the city's first Party chief in 1980.

"After the loans were granted in September, we celebrated in the way that we mark the Lunar New Year," Wu recalled. "But then followed a ruckus about how the money should be used."

A fierce quarrel erupted between engineers and city leaders who met in a makeshift room in October 1980 to discuss where the money should go.

Engineers insisted that Luohu, closest to Hong Kong, was the most ideal place to develop real estate and commerce first, and could earn first pot of gold for Shenzhen by attracting foreign investment. The idea was bitingly opposed by some senior leaders because the low-lying Luohu was vulnerable to flooding.

The two sides were engaged in a battle of words, each refusing to yield. The meeting was deadlocked after a young engineer lost his temper with two senior leaders and smashed a chair, accusing them "ignorant of urban construction but unbearably arrogant.

Wu, who chaired the meeting, broke the ice by voting for the engineers and decided to level Luohu Mountain to raise the land.

Critics lodged complaints against Wu to the provincial government for "giving orders on a whim."

The quarrel did not subside until December when Jiang Zemin, who was then vice director of the national import and export commission, urged at a provincial meeting to speed up construction of Luohu, four months after he made a field trip there in August.

"It rained when I was shown around Luohu. The whole area was submerged," Jiang said at the meeting. "My feet were soaked in the water. So did the feet of businessmen from Hong Kong. We need to put an end to this."

Tens of thousands of workers were employed round-the-clock to level Luohu Mountain and raise the land by an average of two meters.

SEZ development satisfactory

World famous Italian correspondent Oriana Fallaci asked Deng a question during an interview in the fall of 1980, when the China's first SEZs sprang up to catch the attention of Western media.

"Bringing foreign capital into China will inevitably give rise to private investment. Won't this lead to miniaturized capitalism?"

A confident Deng told her that opening up to the outside world could never affect China's system of socialist public ownership of the means of production, and absorbing foreign capital and technology and even allowing foreigners to construct plants in China could only play a complementary role to China's efforts to develop the productive forces in a socialist society.

"Of course, it will bring some decadent capitalist influences into China. We are aware of this possibility. It's nothing to be afraid of," Deng said.

Thirty years later, Shenzhen's GDP skyrocketed to 680 billion yuan (US$97 billion) in 2007 from less than 200 million yuan in 1979, facts proving Deng to be a great man of great foresight.

(CRIENGLISH.com August 24, 2010)