Shenzhen's accidental landlords
Fishing villagers whose land sat inside a 1980 special economic zone.
$30bn+combined fortune of original villagers
What they did
The villagers of Huanggang and Futian had farmed and fished for centuries. Before the 1980s, many swam for British Hong Kong. Those who remained stayed because they did not leave, not because they expected a boom.
What they did not choose
The state redrew the map around their farmland. Foreign investment arrived. The fishing village became a city of 17 million. Clan elders put holdings into nearly a thousand village corporations. Business Day later called their heirs this city's equivalent of Manhattan trust-fund babies. Relatives who swam the other way lived different lives on the other side of a border that did not yet exist.
Figures
- Shenzhen special economic zone declared in 1980.
- Original villagers: about 300,000 people, combined fortune above $30 billion (Business Day, 2021).
- Those families own roughly one-fifth of Shenzhen, a city of about 17 million.