A bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping on the hilltop of Lotus Park in Shenzhen's downtown, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, hoping to get a better understanding of how Deng and the policy he initiated have led Shenzhen to achieve an economic miracle. (ZHU HONGBO / LU WEN / CHINA DAILY)

On the hilltop of Lotus Park in Shenzhen's downtown, a grand statue stands sentinel. The 6-meter-tall bronze likeness of Deng Xiaoping overlooks the whole city, as if the "chief architect" of China's reform and opening-up policy is watching every step of progress his brainchild has enabled.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from all across the world come to visit the site, hoping to get a better understanding of how Deng and the policy he initiated have led Shenzhen to achieve an economic miracle.

Every time I stand here, I can recall my youth. There was no adequate food, no television, no air conditioners, no mobile phones. It was the reform and opening-up policy initiated by Deng that has made our lives much better than before.

 Huang Songmei, retiree from Jiangxi

Huang Songmei has visited the statue four times. The 66-year-old retiree from eastern Jiangxi province first came to Shenzhen 28 years ago, but it was not until 2012 that she moved to the city permanently with her son.

"Every time I stand here, I can recall my youth. There was no adequate food, no television, no air conditioners, no mobile phones. It was the reform and opening-up policy initiated by Deng that has made our lives much better than before," she says.

The idea of erecting the Deng Xiaoping statue in Shenzhen originated in 1994, two years after the late Chinese leader made his historic tour to Shenzhen, known as the "Southern Tour". During his trip, he made a famous speech, calling for further emancipation of the mind and acceleration of reform and opening-up.

After three years of examinations and negotiations, the local government finally decided to place it in Lotus Park.

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However, the project was later shelved, as more than a dozen Chinese cities that had been selected as pilot areas for opening-up, applied for the right to raise a statue of Deng following his death in February 1997. None, however, was approved.

A bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping on the hilltop of Lotus Park in Shenzhen's downtown, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, hoping to get a better understanding of how Deng and the policy he initiated have led Shenzhen to achieve an economic miracle. (ZHU HONGBO / LU WEN / CHINA DAILY)

It was not until 2000, when Shenzhen celebrated the 20th anniversary of its founding that the plan was put on the agenda once again. In November that year, the Deng Xiaoping statue was completed.

Teng Wenjin, major designer of the statue, says the original design was based on a photo of Deng taken during his Southern Tour where he was just standing. Designers later changed it to show him walking, which Teng says carries a special meaning that "the steps of carrying out reform and opening-up should be bold".

With the spirit of openness, innovation and entrepreneurship, Shenzhen has developed into a metropolis with a strong private economy. It is home to a number of globally well-known tech enterprises, including telecom equipment supplier Huawei, internet giant Tencent and drone maker DJI.

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Ezra Vogel, former director of Fairbank East Asia Center and the author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, said in a 2020 interview that the things which Shenzhen has achieved over the past 40 years were unique.

Also known by his Chinese name Fu Gaoyi, the late American Sinologist added at the time that it rose from an impoverished prefecture to a metropolis with a population of over 20 million people in four decades, noting that there is no other place in the world that has developed so rapidly.

Special economic zones represented by Shenzhen are the vanguard of China's development, he says. Some other countries－developing countries, in particular－can learn from their development paths, he says.