Topic 5

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Topic 5 6 Globalization and China Shenzhen
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I. The Case of Shenzhen SEZ

• Questions
• What is the glocalizing process in China?
• How is the glocalizing process revealed in the
  building of SEZ?
• Theme
• how SEZs are built as glocalized landscapes in
  illustrating the process of China entering the
  global economy

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Building Glocalized Landscapes

• SEZs are the outcomes of Chinas engaging into
  the global economy. SEZs are already a formidable
  presence in the global economy

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Building Glocalized Landscapes

• The process of glocalization- how the SEZs
  develop themselves into glocalized landscapes
  that serve to bring China into the world economy
• Focus on the development of Shenzhen SEZ

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Shenzhen is an immigrant city, built quickly with
  a borrowed population.
• In 1979, the Central government and the Guangdong
  Government decided to upgrade a small town,
  Baoan county, to the status of a city named
  Shenzhen.

Shenzhen before 1979
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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• In May 1980 the Special Economic Zone was set up.
  
• Shenzhen SEZ was erected as a test case as an
  economic development zone open to the global
  capital.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Shenzhen thus was the specific place where global
  capital and the socialist state encountered each
  other and worked hand in hand, though not always
  in harmony, in shaping a new economy.
• Shenzhen is on the east of the Pearl River Delta.
  In the north it is connected to Dongguan,
  Weiyuan, in the south to Hong Kong, and in the
  east it faces Daya Bay.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• The Shenzhen SEZ is only part of Shenzhen city.
  It occupies one sixth of the whole city.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• The SEZ is special not only in its economic but
  also in its political and social aspects.
• There is a long iron curtain from east to west
  separating the SEZ from the non-special zone of
  the whole country those who wanted to enter the
  SEZ require special permission from the Public
  Security Branch in their local regions.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Before the setting up of the SEZ, Shenzhen was
  only a small town with 310,000 residents and less
  than 30,000 workers.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• The total population of the whole Shenzhen now
  was over 7.08 million and the total population of
  SEZ is 1.90 million.
• In its population composition, less than 20 are
  categorized as permanent residents who have come
  from major cities and become state officials,
  entrepreneurs, technicians and skilled workers.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Over 82 are temporary residents, which means
  they do not have the official household
  registration entitling them to recognized
  citizenship in Shenzhen.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• When they lose their jobs in Shenzhen, they are
  not officially permitted to stay in Shenzhen.
• It is clear that the expansion of Shenzhen and
  its Special Economic Zone is based on the
  mobility of migrants as temporary residents.

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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• In Shenzhen all workers and staff members are
  categorized into three kinds
• Guding zhigong(????), regular workers and staff
  members,
• Hetong zhigong(????), contract workers and staff
  members,
• Linshi zhigong(????), temporary workers and staff
  members.

Key concept to remember!
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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Guding zhigong refers to those employed by
  state-owned enterprises or government organs and
  they enjoy all the state welfare such as housing
  and food provision.
• Hetong zhigong refers to those employed on a
  contract basis by all kinds of enterprises the
  contracts may last for three or five years. Most
  contract workers in Shenzhen are university
  graduates who are employed as technicians,
  skilled workers or management staff

Key concept to remember!
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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Linshi zhigong, temporary workers are the most
  disadvantaged in Shenzhen not until 1988 were
  they officially given temporary contracts on a
  yearly basis.
• In the second half of the 1980s, the number of
  temporary workers increased rapidly and surpassed
  the total number of regular workers and contract
  workers.

Key concept to remember!
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Shenzhen as an immigrant city

• Most manual labour in the SEZ is undertaken by
  these temporary residents from rural areas. In
  Shenzhen, as soon as one becomes a legal
  temporary worker, one is then entitled to be a
  temporary resident.
• A rural laborer can get a temporary hukou(??) in
  Shenzhen only if he/she is hired as a temporary
  worker.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• Encouraged by the Open-door policies and the
  economic reforms, the local state of the villages
  greatly transform themselves by turning into
  companies.
• The local state of Blue River not only merely
  formed a company, but completely turned itself
  into a company in 1984.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The former name Blue River Peoples Commune was
  changed to Blue River Manufacturers Chief
  Company, under which it owned or joint-ventured
  over thirteen companies.
• The old government offices building remained, but
  it was expanded to include a new wing of four
  storeys connected to the old one.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The bureaucratic structure of the Chief Company
  was changed and expanded as well.
• Now there was a General Office, an External Trade
  Department, a Finance Department, an
  Administrative Department, a Population and Birth
  Control Department, a Labour Regulation
  Department, and a Mass Organization Division
  which included a Youth Committee, a Womens
  Federation and Trade Union.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The Company itself was a mixture of pre-existing
  socialist politics and a reform market
  economy, a hybrid reflection of the ongoing
  development of the socialist market economy.

Key concept to remember!
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The Transformation of Local Community

• the Blue River government gained complete
  independence in regulating foreign investment and
  local trade without any intervention from the
  upper levels.
• Blue River was not an exceptional case.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• It was the state, or political forces rather than
  capital, which served as the locomotive of
  economic development.
• Land was distributed to the families for less
  than two years in Blue River and requisitioned
  again in 1984 for the use of industrial
  development.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• Every household, according to the number of
  household members, was to be allocated a share
  each year in the yearly profit made by the Chief
  Company, formerly their village government.
• Every year, households obtained share dividends
  ranging from RMB 15,000 to 20,000.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• A local cadre proudly told,

It was almost ten times what the family could
earn before. Nowadays people dont need to do
anything but just wait for their share dividend
at the end of the year. Whats more, the family
can free hands from farming and they can choose
to do business.
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The Transformation of Local Community

• The local residents suddenly became rich, with
  their official identity changed from rural people
  to urban citizens and, with their economic status
  or class position totally altered.
• In terms of occupation, almost 80 of the local
  working population was self-employed persons.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• 10 were managerial or supervisory staff in the
  companies newly set up in the village.
• 10 worked outside the village, some holding a
  position in the District government or employed
  in big companies in Central Shenzhen or
  Guangzhou.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The living standard of the village was
  comparatively higher than any other cities in
  China. Every family was well furnished with
  electric appliances, a color TV set, hi-fi disc
  and air-conditioners.
• not without worry - an economic recession in
  Shenzhen from 1997 till, as more and more foreign
  capital moved out of the SEZ to the much cheaper
  area in the internal cities.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• Foods, goods and daily necessities here were
  relatively very expensive. The prices were
  one-third higher in Guangzhou and probably double
  those in other northern cities.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• Yet as long as a family could afford it, they
  still preferred to buy imported foreign-labeled.
• Shenzhen ren- the people of Shenzhen, a broad
  cultural identity signifying a modern
  cosmopolitanism attached to the space and the
  people who lived there.

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The majority of economic producers, or the
  working class in the village, on the other hand,
  were not local residents.
• Of the total population, over 75 were temporary
  residents, migrant workers who had moved in from
  outside the village

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The Transformation of Local Community

• The socio-economic structure of Blue River
  village was thus conditioned mainly by a
  two-tiered system
• One tier was local urban residents who not only
  possessed the means of production but also the
  space, the right of abode.

Key concept to remember!
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The Transformation of Local Community

• The other tier consisted of rural migrants who
  had to sell their labor to the factories in which
  they worked, while having no right to stay
  permanently where they worked.
• These migrant temporary labour were three times
  the number of the local residents, and were the
  lowest status workers in the community.

Key concept to remember!
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HK Company in Shenzhen

• The HK company, named Meteor, is located in
  Blue River in Nanshan District, Shenzhen,
  within the confines of the Special Economic Zone.
  
• The history of the HK Company in Shenzhen has
  demonstrated the development of the industrial
  village, Blue River village in SEZ, and the
  changing social relations of the local community
  for more than one decade.

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Hong Kong Company in Shenzhen

• The Meteor was set up in 1985, a year after the
  village, formerly a rural commune, had undergone
  a dramatic change.
• It was an electronics enterprise which produced
  mobile phones and electronic route-finders for
  Phillips.

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Hong Kong Company in Shenzhen

• Headed by five HK managers in each department,
  there were almost no communications between HK
  and local staff and workers.
• Huge income gaps and class status created
  mistrust among each other.

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Hong Kong Company in Shenzhen

• Except for most of the engineers, technicians,
  managers, supervisors and some office clerks who
  came from urban areas, more than 80 of the work
  force formerly held a rural hukou.
• The work force in the Meteor, and in
  manufacturing industry as a whole was mainly
  made up of the rural population.

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Conclusion

• Shenzhen is a dual city.
• A hukou is attached to employment, and once a
  migrant worker was dismissed, or left the job, he
  or she was not granted the right to stay in
  Shenzhen.
• Shenzhen is a place by them, but not for them.

Key concept to remember!