History of Shenzhen

Prehistory to Ming era
The oldest evidence of humans on the area that Shenzhen was established on dates back during the mid-Neolithic period. Since then, this area has seen human activity for more than 6,700 years ago, with Shenzhen’s historic counties first established 1,700 years ago, and the historic towns of Nantou (now present day Nanshan District) and Dapeng, which was built on the area that is now Shenzhen, established more than 600 years ago. In addition, the Hakka people has a history in Shenzhen since 300 years ago when they first immigrated.

In 214 BC(E), when Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China under the Qin Dynasty, the area went under the jurisdiction of the established Nanhai County, one of three counties that were set up in Lingnan, and was assimilated into Zhongyuan culture. In 331 CE/AD, the Eastern Jin administration split up Nanhai County into two counties: Dongguan County in the south and Bao’an County in the north, with both under the administration of Dongguan Prefecture. In 590 CE/AD, the Sui administration merged Dongguan County and Bao’an County back into Nanhai County, and set the local government in the town of Nantou, though this was reversed by the Tang administration in 757 CE/AD.

During the Song Dynasty, Nantou and the surrounding area became an important hub for trade of salt and spices in the South China Sea. The area then became known for producing pearls during the Yuan Dynasty. In the early Ming era, Chinese sailors of a fleet would go to a Mazu temple in Chiwan (present day Nanshan District) to pray as they go to Nanyang. The Battle of Tunmen, when the Ming won a naval battle against invading Portuguese, was located south of Nantou. In 1573, the Ming administration dissolved Bao’an County to establish Xin’an County, based in Nantou, which had authority over regions that would be Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Xin’an County’s economy primarily was based on the production and trade of salt, tea, spices, and rice.

Qing era to 1940s
To prevent insurgency from Ming loyalists under Zheng Chenggong, better known as Koxinga, in the Chinese coast, the recently established Qing administration re-organized coastal provinces. As a result, Xin’an County lost two-thirds of its territory to the neighboring Dongguan County, and was later incorporated into Dongguan in 1669, though Xin’an was restored about 15 years later, in 1684. As of 1688, there were 28 towns in Xin’an County, of which one of the towns is named Shenzhen. When the Qing lost to the United Kingdom in both Opium Wars in 1842 and 1860, Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island was ceded from Xin’an to the British in the Treaty of Nanking and the Convention of Peking. On 21 April 1898, the Qing government signed a “Special Article for the Exhibition of Hong Kong’s Borders” with the United Kingdom, and leased the New Territories from Xin’an to the United Kingdom for 99 years. Shenzhen was occupied by the British under Henry Arthur Blake, the then-governor of Hong Kong for half-a-year in 1899. From the 3,076 square kilometres (1,188 sq mi) of territory that Xin’an held before the treaties, 1,055.61 square kilometres (407.57 sq mi) of the county’s land was ceded to the British.

In response to the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, Xin’an residents rebelled against the local Qing administration and successfully overthrew them. In the same year, the Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) was opened to the public, and the last stop of the Chinese side, named Shenzhen Railway Station at the town of Shenzhen, which opened a year ago, helped the town’s economy and opened Shenzhen up to the world. In 1913, the Republic of China administration renamed Xin’an County back to Bao’an County to prevent confusion from another county of the same name in Henan Province. During the Canton–Hong Kong strike, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions set up a reception station for strike workers in Hong Kong in Shenzhen. Strike workers were also given pickets and armored vehicles by the strike committee to create a blockade around Hong Kong. In 1931, a number of casinos, the largest of which being Shumchun Casino, were established by the family of Chen Jitang in Shenzhen. While only in operation until 1936, they significantly increased KCR’s passenger traffic to and from Shenzhen.

During World War II, the Japanese occupied Shenzhen and Nantou with plans to invade Hong Kong, forcing the Bao’an County government to relocate to the neighboring Dongguan County. In 1941, the Japanese army tried to cross into Hong Kong through the Lo Wu Bridge in Shenzhen, though this was detonated by the British, preventing the Japanese from entering Hong Kong. When Japan surrendered in May 1945, the Bao’an County government moved back to Nantou.

1950s to 1970s
In 1953, four years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Bao’an County government decided to move to Shenzhen and make it the center of Bao’an County, since Shenzhen was closer to the KCR and had a larger economy than Nantou. From the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, Shenzhen and the rest of Bao’an County oversaw a huge influx of refugees trying to escape to Hong Kong from the upheavals that were occurring in mainland China, and a range from 100,000 to 560,000 refugees resided in the county.

In January 1978, a Central Inspection Team sent by the State Council investigated and established the issue of creating a foreign trade port in Bao’an County. In May, the investigation team wrote the “Hong Kong and Macao Economic Investigation Report” and proposed to turn Bao’an County and Zhuhai into commodity export bases. In August 1978, the Huiyang District Committee reported to the Provincial Committee on the “Report on the Request for the Change of Bao’an County to Shenzhen”. On 18 October, the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee decided to change Bao’an County into Bao’an City and to turn it into a medium-level prefecture-level city with a foreign trade base. The Huiyang District Committee and the Bao’an County Committee however defended the change to rename Bao’an County to Shenzhen, claiming that people in the world knows more about Shenzhen and its port than they know about Bao’an County.

On 31 January 1979, the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved a plan to establish the Shekou Industrial Zone in Shenzhen with the purpose “to lead domestic, overseas, and diversified operations, industrial and commercial integration, and trading” based on the systems of that of Hong Kong and Macau. The Shekou Industrial Zone project was led by Hong Kong-based China Merchants Group under Yuan Geng’s leadership, and was to become the first export processing industrial zone in mainland China.

At the beginning of April 1979, the Standing Committee of Guangdong Province discussed and proposed to the Central Committee to set up a “trade cooperation zone” in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou. In the same month, the Central Working Conference decided on the “Regulations on Vigorously Developing Foreign Trade to Increase Foreign Exchange Income” and agreed to pilot the first special economic zones (SEZ) in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen. In November, Shenzhen was elevated to the status of prefecture-level city at the regional level by the Guangdong provincial administration.

Special Economic Zone (1980s–present)

In May 1980, the Central Committee designated Shenzhen as a SEZ, which was promoted by then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and created to be an experimental ground for the practice of market capitalism within a community guided by the ideals of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. On 26 August, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) approved the “Regulations of the Guangdong Special Economic Zone.” Under these regulations, Shenzhen formulated a series of preferential policies to attract foreign investment, including business autonomy, taxation, land use, foreign exchange management, product sales, and entry and exit management. Through the processing of incoming materials, compensation trade, joint ventures, cooperative operations, sole proprietorship, and leasing, the city has attracted a large amount of foreign investment and helped popularize and enable rapid development of the SEZ concept.

In March 1981, Shenzhen was promoted to a sub-provincial city. There were plans for Shenzhen to develop its own currency, but the plans were shelved due to the risk and the disagreement that a country should not be operating with two currencies. To enforce law and order in the city, the Shenzhen government erected barbed wire and checkpoints between the land borders of the main sections of the SEZ and the SEZ outskirts, as well as the rest of China, in 1983, which was known as the second line, meaning that the city can implement policies that are different from those in the national plan, and was given the right of provincial-level economic administration.In December 1990, under the authority of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange was established to provide a platform for centralized securities trading. In February 1992, the Standing Committee of the NPC granted the government of Shenzhen the power to make local laws and regulations. In 1996 and early 1997, the Shenzhen Guesthouse Hotel in Shenzhen was home to the Provisional Legislative Council and Provisional Executive Council of Hong Kong in preparation for the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. By 2001, as a result of Shenzhen’s increasing economic prospects, increasing numbers of migrants from mainland China chose to go to Shenzhen and stay there instead of trying to illegally cross into Hong Kong. There were 9,000 captured border-crossers in 2000, while the same figure was 16,000 in 1991. In May 2008, the State Council approved the Shenzhen SEZ to promote Shenzhen’s administrative management system, economic system, social field, independent innovation system and mechanism, system and mechanism for opening up and regional cooperation, and resource conservation and environmental friendliness.

On 1 July 2010, the State Council dissolved the “second line,” and expanded the Shenzhen SEZ to include all districts, a five-fold increase over its pre-expansion size. On 26 August 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen SEZ, the State Council approved the “Overall Development Plan for Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone.” In August 2011, the city hosted the 26th Universiade, an international multi-sport event organized for university athletes. In April 2015, the Shekou Industrial Zone and the Qianhai Zone were integrated within the newly-established Guangdong Free-Trade Zone.

On 18 August 2019, the central government in Beijing unveiled reform plans covering economical, social, and political sectors of Shenzhen, with the intention of having the SEZ be a model city for others in China to follow.

Souce From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen#History