more impressive know-how China is perfecting is the ability to build experimental cities. With its program for special economic zones, it has prolonged the existence of a frontier. After the success of Shenzhen, it created six more zones. Taken together, this could be the most successful anti-poverty program in human history, as hundreds of millions of the poor have been lifted out of poverty in a mere twenty to thirty years.

Michael Gibson, Paper belt on fire: how renegade investors sparked a revolt against the university, New York, 2022, p. 190