By Li Hong

Starting from scratch, China's southern booming city Shenzhen has emerged as a rising star among Asian towns. President Hu Jintao extols it as the world's "miracle" in its dash for urbanization and modernization. Boasting the country's highest per capita GDP of US$13,600 last year, the city's 9 million residents are mostly converted from formerly stark poor farmers.

Shenzhen is an icon of the country's economic achievement under the auspices of Mr. Deng Xiaoping, the man who waked up a sleeping juggernaut, after seeing the country lapse during the disastrous 10-year Cultural Revolution.

The city is the place Deng first blew the bullhorn for "reform and opening-up", and later in 1992, brandished the flag of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" asking the country to quicken its pace of development. It is Deng's famous Shenzhen Speech that year that has dispersed a residual concern about ideology – whether China remains a socialist country, or skids to capitalism – and put the country permanently on the way to a rebirth.

The model of Special Economic Zone – carving a plot of land in which completely different economic policies are experimented -- starts with Shenzhen and later extends to Shanghai's Pudong and Tianjin's Binhai new zones, and is now being replicated by a good number of governments of some underdeveloped countries. The magic of its success: Free enterprise, lenient taxation plus a swath of really hard-working and obedient laborers.

As a result, private investment has thrived, overseas corporations have chased each other to set up joint-venture factories, and tens of hundreds of inexpensive rural labor force have migrated to the city. Shenzhen has been China's brewing ground for a slew of reform strategies. Once proved viable in boosting productivity and generating wealth, a measure would be introduced to other provinces to reach the effect of scale.

Now, authorities in Beijing have drawn a picture of even brighter future for Shenzhen, a metropolis born from nowhere merely 30 years ago. It will act as the front-runner leading a cluster of southern cities to jostle for prosperity and prominence. The central government has a roadmap for the city to be grown to a national economic center and a city of global clout in economic and technological advances.

As a pioneer of reform and vanguard of the country's modernization drive, the city must aim high. In spite of the fact that Shenzhen has attained an annual economic growth rate more than 25 percent in the past 30 years, compared with 9.8 percent growth for the entire country, the city's next immediate target should be doubling its current per capita GDP figure to US$27,000, before the year 2020.

It is significant for Shenzhen to reach the target as soon as possible, backed up by vigorous investment into new and high technologies, building a world-class manufacturing base, and installing the world's fastest transit network.

The target, once materialized, will be inspirational to other cities in the hinterland, and assures all the nationals that China can avoid the per-capita GDP $5,000 Middle-Income Trap -- as experienced by some South American and Southeast Asian countries (their economies stagnated or even deteriorated after hitting the per-capita $4,000-8,000 GDP).

With Mr. Deng Xiaoping as their mentor, President Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have followed his teaching "Development Is the Overriding Principle" ever since 2003, and steered China's jumble ship fairly artistically, as the economy kept double-digit expansion from 2004 to 2008. The 8.8 percent GDP growth last year in the aftermath of a global economic crisis contrasts sharply with the Western developed countries. This year, China's economy is likely to grow 10 percent.

It is heartening to note that both Hu and Wen have instructed Shenzhen to continue to boldly experiment reforms in government management, in holding democratic elections, in protecting migrant workers' interests and providing social security umbrella to cover all its residents. As Mr. Deng has told us: Reform is the only way for China.

Shenzhen, a brainchild of Mr. Deng, should be the trail-blazers and give the country more miracles.