Opinion | China's unsung heroes from Hong Kong
By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
China's economic miracle has wowed the world. But few know how it came about, or who were behind it.
It's time to get acquainted with China's catalysts for change.
Ever wondered why China became an economic superpower while other nations became failed states? It's partly because China has a special breed of patriots.
Russia has oligarchs, but China has an army of patriotic entrepreneurs who helped the country reinvent itself. They help explain the economic gap between the two countries. Dirt-poor in the early 80's, China was starved of resources, technical know-how and market connections. Into this void stepped Hong Kong manufacturers who, within two short decades, ushered in the biggest industrial revolution in human history.
Crippled by the Cultural Revolution, China's economy was in stagnation. At that critical juncture, Deng Xiaoping took charge as the nation's economic architect, designating a string of coastal cities as Special Economic Zones (SEZ). Hong Kong entrepreneurs leaped at this opportunity, turning adjacent cities into hyper-growth centers at a dizzying pace. Shenzhen, for one, is now known as Silicon Valley of the East, whose GDP is leaving Hong Kong in the dust.
On the heels of China's Open Door policy, Hong Kong factory owners by the thousands poured across the border. With their inventive business brains, they set up manufacturing bases that soon conquered the world.
This breed are doers, not talkers. They could move mountains and walk on water. They turned an overabundance of land and cheap labor into their competitive advantage. Overnight rows of factories mushroomed across Guangdong. They lost no time showing local workers the ropes, while making themselves part of the rags-to-riches stories.
Another era-defining change followed. Factory floors were no longer the preserve of male entrepreneurs. Competing with them on equal terms were women factory operators who knew how to handle workers and overseas customers. Collectively, they smashed China's glass ceiling. To the chagrin of the West, China, a communist country, boasts more super-successful female entrepreneurs than their capitalist competitors.
As problem-solvers, Hong Kong manufacturers, male or female, are unsurpassable. With zest for life, and utterly resourceful, they are able to do more with less. They could survive and even thrive in any harsh or hostile environment. As native sons and daughters, they command local knowledge, shortening their odds in winning sales contracts. They powerfully jump-started China's economic transformation. They turned "made-in-China" into an enviable global brand and China itself into a leapfrog nation—leaping across eras, economic models, and technological gaps.
But these trail-blazers didn't stop at industrial revolution. They ventured into education. Industry titans underwrote the construction of educational institutions. Li Ka-shing, for example, single-handedly, founded and funded Shantou University in his native town. The late Tin Ka-ping wrote checks for hundreds of schools across China. He gave until it hurt, even selling his mansion to live in a hovel to honor a donation pledge.
Later, higher education reform was boosted by the expertise of Hong Kong educators. Baptist University's president Ng Ching-fei boldly partnered Beijing Normal University to establish China's first joint-venture university in Zhuhai. Named United International College, better known as UIC, its graduates are today eagerly snapped up by the world's tip-top universities from Cambridge to Columbia. Shortly, it inspired other foreign universities to follow suit. Duke, Liverpool, Nottingham and New York Universities, and even Moscow, among others, now have off-shore campuses in China. The latest of this cross-breed is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou. It is determined to replicate HKUST's miracle in science education at breakneck speed.
These patriotic pioneers have flattened China's learning curve in becoming a modern economy and educated society. China scores big in poverty alleviation and higher education —in which Hong Kong patriots had played a pivotal role.
One day, when the history of China's jaw-dropping half-century is chronicled, these unsung heroes deserve their own chapter. In moments of truth, they were instrumental in China's utter self-invention that has no parallel in human history.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Comment