The soft power of hard tech—The “Shenzhen Model” as an ideological device

In August 2019, The Shenzhen Model City Initiative was released in which the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced its decision to support Shenzhen, the long-standing poster city for China’s economic reform, in building a demonstration pilot zone for Chinese socialism with a particular emphasis on further developing the city’s technological prowess. What are the ideological implications of the latest model-making of Shenzhen? And how does the city’s innovative turn relate to its role as the nation’s perceived civilizational front line? This study explores the continuities and evolution of contemporary Chinese governance by considering the reinvention of the “Shenzhen Model” in relation to processes of urbanization, globalization and industrial upgrading. Drawing upon Tim Oakes’s theory of the “urban” as an ideological device, it examines the (re)making of the “Shenzhen Model” through different discourses, apparatuses and policies related to the city’s technological innovation and entrepreneurship. Situating the “Shenzhen Model” at a time of precarity and uncertainty amidst economic growth slowdown, the China-United States trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic, this article demonstrates how the state mobilizes narratives and practices pertinent to technological innovation and entrepreneurship to enhance its political influence and thus sheds light on the latest developments in urban governance during China’s post-industrial turn.