Cultural Contributions from the Special Economic Zones to China’s Development Path

Abstract

Remarkable achievements have been made since the special economic zones were established in China; in particular, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone has been highly commended by the leaders of the Central Committee—Hu Jintao said: “Shenzhen has created the miracles in the world history of industrialization, modernization and urbanization”; Xi Jinping said: “Shenzhen’s development is a representative work of China’s reform, China’s miracle and also the world’s miracle”. However, as the special economic zones originally aimed at and focused on promoting economic development, in a considerably long time, domestic and foreign attention was mainly paid to the achievements of economic development and to the reform of the economic system in the special economic zones, while there was less attention to and research on the cultural situation and innovations in the special economic zones and their cultural contributions to China’s modernization. In fact, the rapid development in the special economic zones is largely attributable to the cultural spiritual impetus; the economy and culture have flourished side by side and supplemented each other in the special economic zones. The special economic zones have given birth to not only great economic achievements, but also tremendous cultural achievements which cannot be ignored, showing a function of impressive cultural innovation and of making some widely-recognized important contributions to the drive of China’s modernization.