You said, “Then in 1997, China took over Hong Kong. The Chinese were astounded by Hong Kong. They went home and asked themselves, “how can we replicate that?” They opened “enterprise zones” in a few cities. And soon, all of China was designated an “enterprise zone.””
I think you got your history wrong. It was in 1978 when China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore which inspired the idea of opening up China.
Deng’s visit to Singapore enabled him to see first-hand the growth and development of Singapore as an island and a nation-state. He first visited Singapore in 1920 when he was 16 years old, on his way from China to France for a work and study program. Singapore was then a British colonial port city. Fifty-eight years later, Deng witnessed Singapore’s transformation into a modern city-state.
During his brief stay, Deng learnt about Singapore’s public housing and industrialisation programme. Deng's 1978 visit laid the foundation for close ties between Singapore and China well before diplomatic relations were formalised in 1990. The visit also sowed the seeds for the replication of the Singapore model of industrial development in China.
Inspired by his experience in Singapore, Deng later went back to China and told his colleagues what he saw. He cited Singapore as a successful case study. Subsequently, the Chinese Communist Party approved the pilot implementation of special economic zones in Shenzhen and Zhuhai, and later Shantou and Xiamen, in southern China. Under Deng, China’s economy opened, evolved, and grew substantially over the subsequent decades.
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