Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (78 page)

Deng had great reason to be satisfied that the success of the Guangdong experiment was now spreading to other areas. In October 1984 Deng told a meeting of senior officials that he had enjoyed two major achievements that year: reaching an agreement on the future of Hong Kong, and opening the fourteen coastal cities to foreign investment.
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Guangdong as the New Dazhai

During the Cultural Revolution, Dazhai was Mao's great national model for moving to a higher stage of socialist agriculture. Although Guangdong was not formally designated as a model, it became well known throughout China as the de facto archetype for how to advance modernization. Officials throughout the country learned about Guangdong through reports, meetings at which Guangdong experiences were discussed, study tours, and visits by officials who had worked in or had apprenticed in Guangdong. In particular, many high-level Beijing officials who had accepted invitations to visit and enjoy Guangdong in the wintertime—invitations made to win support for the province—returned to Beijing and other northern cities and reported what they had observed in Guangdong.

Ordinary people had learned about Dazhai from the classroom and the work unit, as well as from books, propaganda classes, wall posters, loudspeakers, and visits to Dazhai. They learned about developments in Guangdong and Shenzhen mostly in their own homes from television sets that had been coming off Chinese assembly lines, mostly in Guangdong. Ordinary people went to Dazhai because they were encouraged to do so. They studied Guangdong, however, not to show that they were ideologically correct, but because they were eager to learn about what was happening there. If anything, the model was too powerful, raising hopes elsewhere long before other areas could afford to copy the Guangdong and Fujian experiments. Consequently,
Beijing did not promote the study of Guangdong, but rather tried to dampen expectations that it could be immediately copied elsewhere.

Many Western practices that had earlier been introduced into Hong Kong entered Guangdong through the southern gate, and were later passed on elsewhere in China. When Guangdong created its first toll bridge near Foshan, for example, officials there were criticized for engaging in the capitalist practice of issuing bonds to be repaid by tolls—but within a few years, the issuance of bonds and tolls had become part of the conventional wisdom about how to finance the building of large bridges and highways in China. In 1983 Guangdong also became the first province in China to eliminate set prices on many foods, such as rice and fish. The prices of these goods rose dramatically; but as people responded to the market, producing more, the prices declined. In another example, this time in the coastal city of Guangzhou, commercial taxis were introduced. Until the early 1980s virtually all automobiles in China were owned by work units and driven by chauffeurs who belonged to the work unit, but after Guangzhou purchased old Hong Kong taxis and pioneered their use on the mainland, within several years all major cities in China had launched their own commercial taxi services.

The Sixth National Games in November 1987 symbolized Guangdong's new role. They were held in a new, state-of-the-art stadium in Guangdong that featured large television screens, loudspeakers, and other technologies carefully modeled after those used in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The event showcased Guangdong's advances in construction, manufacturing, and services, as well as its organizational capacities, all developed during the reform and opening. Premier Zhao Ziyang, returning to Guangdong where he had spent most of his work career, in a brief speech at the games praised Guangdong for setting a new high standard for China. Management of the National Games became a model for the Asian Games held in 1990 and the springboard for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
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The pace of change in Guangdong throughout the 1980s remained well ahead of that of the rest of the country, inspiring officials in other areas of China to continue trying new approaches to modernization. Deng had made good use of Guangdong as a pacesetter for the rest of the country. In 1992, in a final gesture before he stepped down, he would return yet again to the region to make certain that the southern gate that played such a key role in the modernization of China remained wide open.