Shenzhen Quotes

“Shenzhen”

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“Shenzhen is a city built on migrant labour. The government there has always adopted policies that adapt to that fact. Now it is a lot easier for migrants to find a place in school for their children, but it is still discretionary.”

“After being established as China’s first economic zone in 1980, Shenzhen quickly developed from a sleepy small border town into a large modern city, quite impressive in the history of industrialization, modernizing, and urbanization.”

“For now, what makes Shenzhen unique as a manufacturing hub is its ability to accommodate everything from the serious to the silly, from the experimental to the sustainable, from devices that alleviate poverty to gadgets that grab headlines.”

“The city has since grown into a tech hub, synonymous of smart hardware and technological innovation within the People’s Republic of China, as a hub where foreigners and domestic companies come together to quickly innovate and build on hardware.”

“Shenzhen is being aggressively pushed forward as China’s model for its future, in sharp contrast perhaps to Hong Kong — a future that will include a central focus on emerging technology standards such as the digital yuan being piloted in Shenzhen now.”

“Shenzhen, with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants scattered in a number of small village clusters, made history as China’s first “special economic zone”, where foreign direct investments and private enterprises were allowed. The impact was immediate, and profound.”

“Shenzhen is shouldering the weight of innovation to achieve Chinese tech breakthroughs in strategic industries while propelling the entire country up the value chain to hedge against economic headwinds, punctuated by four “D’s” – debt, deflation, de-risking and demographics.”

“The success of Shenzhen's urbanization process is a typical sample of China's rapid urbanization, which has its unique attraction in the process of urban development in China and even in the world, so the fascinating question is: Why is Shenzhen that can achieve urbanization so quickly?”

“Being a key hub in the global electronic information technology industry, Shenzhen in recent years has taken the construction of a smart city as an important driving force to promote industrial transformation and upgrading, improving city management and giving full play to new technology.”

“The southern city where China’s economic transformation began more than four decades ago, and which has seen its hi-tech industry become the bellwether for growth, is vowing to double down on efforts to shore up the sector as the nation strives to move up the industrial chain and counteract US-led tech restrictions.”

“Against the backdrop of China’s reform and opening up, Shenzhen managed to unshackle the chain of planned economy guided by market economy principles and took bold measures in reforming the systems of pricing, payment, land and housing, infrastructure construction and labour employment by establishing a special economic zone.”

“Over the past 40 years, Shenzhen has been transformed from a small fishing village into an international city full of charm, vitality, innovation and creativity. However, there are still gaps in the levels of innovation, science and technology education and public service between Shenzhen and innovative cities with global influence.”

“From a population of 30,000 in the early 1970s, the city has grown to over 10 million, with gleaming high-rises, a modern transport system, and world-class retail. The local government gives grants for filing patents and for starting maker spaces. Gentrification and rising rents have made it the most expensive city in China, as the factories that fueled its boom move steadily outward into the rest of the Pearl River Delta.”

“Shenzhen is changing in other ways, too. Instead of just hardware (like hoverboards), it’s making sophisticated products that combine hardware with software (just-in-time bookable electric scooters, app-controlled drones) and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (translation devices, toy robots, semi-autonomous vehicles). Moving beyond its reputation for developing cheap rip-offs of other people’s ideas, it’s become more of a hub that connects innovation, manufacturing, and knowledge all over the world.”

“As China’s pre-eminent tech hub, Shenzhen is home to industry giants such as Huawei Technologies, BYD and DJI. Yet, dozens of companies headquartered here are now on Washington’s “Entity List” that comprises companies and individuals from a range of countries, and which represents perceived threats to US national security.”

“Shenzhen has always been a pioneering city for the People’s Republic of China. In May 1980, then-paramount leader of the PRC, Deng Xiaoping elevated it into a “special economic zone”, a first in market capitalism in a country where GDP per capita hovered around $175, and which was only a few years removed from Maoist economics. Shenzhen would become known as the emerging point of the “opening and reform” period of Chinese history that would slowly build towards China becoming the second largest economy in the world.”

“Major Chinese leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Xi Jinping have both visited Shenzhen many times, pointing out a new direction for Shenzhen's development at key times. Deng Xiaoping mainly designated the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone as one of the earliest special economic zones in China. This story was vividly described as “an old man drew a circle on the South China Sea” and was widely sung, which also implied that Shenzhen experienced the process of elevating from a neglected marginal region to an important growth pole by adopting a national strategic layout.”