Abstract
When former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, traveling to China in 2001, stopped in the southern city of Shenzhen, what he saw amazed him. The city is a pinup for China’s remarkable economic success. The Chinese government granted Shenzhen special economic privileges in the early 1980s, permitting it to trade freely with the rest of the world. The results were explosive. Hong Kong investors poured billions of dollars into the city, relocating their factories across the border to take advantage of the cheaper labor costs. From a sleepy fishing village, Shenzhen grew into a mighty metropolis of more than eight million people, attracting migrants from all over the country. Khaddam reportedly praised the wisdom of former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping,1 who was largely responsible for the economic reforms that had benefited Shenzhen. It is not hard to imagine the Syrian Vice President hoping to repeat the same miracle in Syria.
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Notes
Ragui Assaad and Farzaneh Roudi Fahimi, Youth in the Middle East and North Africa: Demographic Opportunity or Challenge?, Population Reference Bureau (April, 2007), p. 3.
Joyce Jennings Walstedt, “Reform of Women’s Roles and Family Structures in the Recent History of China,” Journal of Marriage and Family, 40:2 (May, 1978), p. 380.
Michael Ross, Oil, Islam, and Women, UCLA Department of Political Science (August, 2007).
Ragui Assaad and Farzaneh Roudi Fahimi, Youth in the Middle East and North Africa: Demographic Opportunity or Challenge?, Population Reference Bureau, (April, 2007).
Diane Singerman, The Economic Imperatives of Marriage: Emerging Practices and Identities among Youth in the Middle East, Wolfensohn Center for Development and Dubai School of Government (September, 2007), p. 33.
James Wolfensohn, A New Commitment for Securing a Prosperous Middle East, Middle East Youth Initiative, Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings, December 12, 2007.
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© 2011 Ben Simpfendorfer
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Simpfendorfer, B. (2011). Young Women and the Future of the Arab World. In: The New Silk Road. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230302075_5
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