Bring down that wall: China officially scraps border around Shenzhen’s old special economic zone
Nearly four decades after the barrier went up and two years after it was torn down, Beijing consigns checkpoints and fence to history to foster city integration
Beijing has officially scrapped a near four-decade border meant to control the flow of people and goods from the rest of China to the original Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.
A directive from the State Council dated January 6 but only published on Monday approved the Guangdong government’s request to abolish the physical border around the city’s core to promote integration with wider Shenzhen.
The decision is symbolic but also reflects the gains the overall city – and not just the zone’s original core – on Hong Kong’s border has made in the four decades of China’s reform and opening up.
The role of the internal border has gradually faded as development has spread across the “Greater Bay Area”.
Work to pull down the fence and the border checkpoints along the demarcation line has been under way for years.