e offered incentives and low wages to manufacturers in search of affordable places to make labor-intensive products such as shoes and toys. But instead of building fenced-in industrial parks near the docks or the airport, China made SEZs out of entire cities and, in the case of Hainan, an island larger than Belgium. The investors were expected not just to create jobs but also to help build, from the ground up, entire, modern urban areas. From the SEZs, Deng hoped, a tide of skills, technology and capital would eventually flow into the surrounding provinces (Spaeth, 1995, 81).
The question remains, however, as to whether that "trickle out" theory truly developed. The data in the next section explores that question.
China has been called the world's fastest-growing major economy, with annual growth rates that averaged more than 10% from 1980 (Roberts & Clifford, 1997, 5400). Much of that growth is attributed to the success of the SEZ geographical construct. In tabular form, the in
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