Shenzhen

The Mai Po Reserve is on the boundary between the New Territories (part of Hong Kong) and Guangdong province of the mainland. In fact, the patrol road and barrier wall with electric fence and barbed wire cut through the reserve. Due, I suppose, to the Berlin wall, we think of such boundaries as erected by the communists to keep people in. In this case, it was erected by the British to keep the mainland Chinese out, and today the Hong Kong government still patrols the boundary to prevent migration of Chinese into Hong Kong, even though it is now part of China.

It was quite surprising to peek over the boundary into the border town of Shenzhen. Defying the definitions of "developed" and "developing" worlds, the Hong Kong side is quite undeveloped near the reserve. There are some residences, but they are shoddy structures, just shacks really, and fields. On the other hand, Shenzhen (the "developing" world) is solid skyscrapers. Mile after mile along the boundary, the skyline is a continuous line of new towering buildings. About a third of the skyscrapers have a crane on top of them, meaning they are still being erected. That gives you an idea of the pace of economic growth in China!

Shenzhen was designated a special economic zone about twenty years ago. At that time it was just a rural area. Now it is home to several million people and thriving businesses. When the Chinese government switched from a planned economy to a free market economy, they also made major infrastructure investments in this area. Two huge airports were built, along with rail lines, highways, and other infrastructure. Foreign investment built the buildings, much of the money coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Chinese nationals living abroad.

Later in our travels we talked with a couple that just completed six months teaching English in Shenzhen. They described it as a rather ugly place, development gone rampant with little thought to public places, parks, or clean air. It is too much development, too fast, with too little planning. In fact, Shenzhen has attempted to create a couple of tourist attractions, but they seem to be outstanding in their tackiness. They have built a "Wonders of China" theme park, which mimics the major sights of China (such as the Great Wall), but this park has drawn uniform scorn from all reviewers so we didn't bother going. Heh, we get to go see the real sights themselves!

As I looked at mile after mile of skyline being built all at the same time, I had to wonder if this was the beginning of a major economic miracle (as the Chinese would say), or if it is a temporary and perhaps overzealous craze, much like Thailand was before the bubble burst in 1997. To China's credit, they are the one country in the world that has withstood both the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2001 global recession. At both times, economists around the world pegged their predictions for Asia's future on China. The key question was whether China would devalue the Yuan. The thinking was that if they devalued, then all bets were off and the economies of both Asia and the world would plunge deeper. The Chinese held steady, adjusting both monetary and fiscal policies to keep their economy humming. This is not without some cost --the national debt rose considerably. But basically they implemented the same fiscal policy (accelerated government spending) and monetary policy (reduced interest rates) much more quickly that the US did, and managed to avoid much of the 2001 recession. This has helped the rest of Asia to reduce the depth of recession that was predicted, so that the rest of Asia is still healthy enough to recover as the US economy regains steam. China's current GDP is growing at about 7.5%, one of the highest in the world, although below the 13% levels of a few years ago.