China Opens Its First Special Economic Zones
- Date
- 1980
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- East Asia (China)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
China launched its first Special Economic Zones in 1980, opening the door to the market reforms that would remake the world's most populous nation.
On 26 August 1980 the National People's Congress approved zones at Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen, coastal enclaves where foreign investment, private enterprise and export manufacturing were permitted under rules banned elsewhere in the socialist economy. Championed by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who called them experiments and sited them far from Beijing to limit political risk, the zones let capitalism be tested inside a Communist state. Shenzhen, a fishing town of a few thousand across the border from Hong Kong, became the emblem of the policy: over the decade its output multiplied roughly two-hundredfold and its population exploded. The SEZ model attracted the foreign capital and technology that fuelled China's transformation into the workshop of the world, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty while widening inequality and tying the country ever more tightly to global trade. The template was later copied across the developing world.
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Empires active in 1980
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Yugoslavia1918 CE – 1992 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour1992
- China's Reform and Opening-Up Begins Under Deng XiaopingDecember 18, 1978
- The global financial crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers15 September 2008
- The Latin American Debt Crisis Erupts1982
- Japan's Asset Bubble Peaks as the Nikkei Hits Record1989
- Nixon shock ends gold convertibility and ushers in 1970s stagflation15 August 1971
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.
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