At the Dachan Bay Port in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, which this reporter visited last month, an endless row of cranes and containers in myriad colors bustled with loading and unloading operations. Dachan Bay is the western base of Shenzhen Port, China's third-largest container port after Shanghai and Ningbo. Nearby Qianhai, a special zone developed in cooperation with Hong Kong, is considered a hub for attracting foreign-invested companies. Shenzhen recorded exports of 2.7387 trillion yuan last year, overtaking second-place Shanghai (2.015 trillion yuan) to take an overwhelming first place.
As a result of intensively nurturing high-tech companies early on, Shenzhen has become a mecca where major Chinese tech firms such as Tencent, Huawei, DJI, and BYD are concentrated. At Huaqiangbei, China's largest electronics market in Shenzhen, if an entrepreneur brings only an idea, everything from design to parts procurement, mass production, launch, logistics, and financial support is added, and a product is launched within two weeks.
At the foundation of it all lies an internationalization strategy driven by "reform and opening up." Until just half a century ago, this place was nothing more than a peripheral fishing village of 30,000 people, as its name meaning "deep ditch" suggests. But in 1980, when Deng Xiaoping designated it, along with Shantou, Zhuhai, and Xiamen, as China's "first special economic zone," a sea change indeed took place. Its optimal location bordering Hong Kong and the near absence of existing vested interests led to the attraction of outside talent and bold institutional experimentation, allowing Shenzhen to develop the fastest among the four special zones. In this way, Shenzhen's population grew 600-fold to 18 million as of last year, and its gross domestic product (GDP) reached 3.9 trillion yuan, making it the third-largest city after Shanghai and Beijing.
Having achieved ultra-high-speed growth rarely seen in world urban history, Shenzhen is preparing for another leap ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this November. Looking down at the city from the observation deck of Robot Valley in Shenzhen's Nanshan district on the 11th of last month, one could find giant construction zones scattered everywhere, each resembling dozens of soccer fields combined. Among them, the site that revealed the most overwhelming scale was the area near the Qianhai International Conference Center. In this area, where APEC side events are scheduled to be held, road maintenance and landscape improvement work was in full swing.
Along with large-scale urban renovation, the Shenzhen city government has formed a dedicated organization and is devoting all its efforts to preparing for APEC. China's choice of Shenzhen as its third APEC host city, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014, is seen as reflecting a judgment that it is the city that can most symbolically demonstrate China's economic development achievements since reform and opening up.
Some see it as also carrying an intention to outwardly showcase the achievements of technological self-reliance, using Shenzhen—home to a concentration of high-tech companies such as Huawei and BYD that have faced U.S. containment—as its stage. Indeed, during the APEC period, leading local companies such as BYD and Huawei are expected to participate as major sponsors, welcoming outside visitors and showcasing their high-tech capabilities. Since early this year, delegations from more than 10 countries, including the United States and Russia, have reportedly visited major corporate exhibition halls in Shenzhen one after another. An official from Shenzhen's Foreign Affairs Office stressed, "Through this event, we hope Shenzhen will take a step further onto the world stage."
