Deng names it special zone
The establishment of the special zone, which took two years, was inspired by a proposal by the Ministry of Commerce to set up an industrial zone in Shekou in 1978, which was hailed by Guangdong. In August, the provincial government put the idea in a report submitted to the Central Government, mapping out plans to make counties of Bao’an and Zhuhai (now Zhuhai City), which borders Macao, export bases.
In January 1979, Bao’an County was renamed Shenzhen City. In the following month, Shantou was added to the report as a new export base, on the insistence of Wu Nansheng, then Party chief of Guangdong.
The report won wide acclaim from top leaders of the Central Government during a meeting between April 5 and 28 in 1979. But attendees were divided over naming the bases — “export-oriented processing zones,” “free trade zones” or “special zones” — before the paramount leader Deng made the final decision.
“Let’s call them ‘special zones.’ We used to have special political zones during the civil war, such as the revolutionary bases in Northwest China,” Deng said. “But we (the Central Government) don’t have money (to support the zones). You (the zones) have to depend on your own and blaze a new trail.”