Authorities will continue supporting the southern economic powerhouse of Shenzhen as a testing ground for political and economic reforms that could have a bearing on future growth, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said yesterday.
“We must make courageous reforms ... as well as avoid rigidity and stagnation,” Hu said on a visit to the city to mark the 30th anniversay of Shenzhen’s establishment as a “special economic zone.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “great, unprecedented step” to allow Shenzhen to act as one of the first experimentation grounds helped catalyze China’s rise from a centrally planned economy into a global economic powerhouse, Hu said.
Hu said the CCP would keep backing economic and political reforms in special economic zones like Shenzhen, where aged late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) made a landmark visit in 1992, reigniting the country’s market economic reforms.
Hu said that by embarking on “brave exploration” in their roles as “first movers,” such regions would be key drivers for what is now the world’s second-largest economy, by some measures.
“We must not only maintain the special economic zones ... but make them better,” Hu said.
Shenzhen’s economy has grown a blistering 25.8 percent annually over the past three decades.
Once a cluster of poor villages amid rice paddies across the border from Hong Kong, Shenzhen has grown into a metropolis of 9 million, getting its start from a flood of investment from its affluent neighbor.
While Hu’s speech stopped short of giving specific reform proposals, he spoke of a need for “bold experiments.”
Economically, this would include more focus on technological innovation and the upgrading of rusting industrial belts in Shenzhen and other export hubs to more advanced manufacturing and high-end services.
Hu also called for “democratic elections in accordance with the law, democratic policy decisions, democratic management and democratic oversight”, a reference to greater internal debate within the CCP, rather than a promise of universal suffrage.
Hu’s speech comes on the heels of one made by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), who made a high-profile call last month in Shenzhen for China to pursue political reform to safeguard its economic health.
Some Chinese media have begun calling for Shenzhen to evolve into a zone for experimenting with administrative reforms and even political liberalization to place more public oversight on officials.
Shenzhen’s former mayor, Xu Zongheng (許宗衡), was arrested and removed last year in a scandal over “serious disciplinary violations” in a web of public graft.
“Reforms in China have reached the point at which political reform is critical to further progress,” the Chinese magazine Caixin wrote.
On the Internet, too, a manifesto urging deeper political reform in Shenzhen has attracted attention. Author Guo Zhongxiao (咼中校) said Shenzhen’s failure to allow political reforms had caused instability and slowed plans for industrial upgrading and improving conditions for factory workers.
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