# How Cool Is Shenzhen? Just Ask Global Journalists Who Come to See It

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/pr-news/how-cool-is-shenzhen-just-ask-global-journalists-who-come-to-see-it
- Published: 2026-09-04T14:36:00+07:00
- Author: PR Newswire

SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — "Shenzhen may well be the world’s 
No. 1 innovation hub. And together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the perfect endpoint
of the modern Silk Road."

That was the glowing verdict American economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered in Shenzhen
just over a month ago, effectively giving the city one of the highest-profile stamps
of approval in the world of development economics.

Sachs is hardly an ordinary commentator. One of the world’s most influential authorities
on sustainable development, and for years a special adviser to the UN secretary-
general, he knows a thing or two about how cities and economies grow.

Video produced by Shenzhen Media Group

In a recent exclusive interview with _Zhi News_ (from Shenzhen Media Group), Sachs
shared his in-depth views. The following is the full report:

when representatives from APEC economies come to Shenzhen, they are bound to be 
impressed. They will discover that the city is not merely a great place to find 
capital and business partners, but also a window into entirely new models of development—
and perhaps a glimpse of what the future could look like.

After decades of trailblazing development, Shenzhen has more than earned that kind
of academic attention. It is, after all, a city built on miracles and a straight-
A student in the school of urban development.

The more you admire Shenzhen, the more you begin to understand _why_ it deserves
admiration. That, to me, is precisely where the real significance of Shenzhen’s 
development lies: not simply in what the city has achieved, but in what its experience
tells us about where the world may be heading.

As a journalist, I would put it this way: Shenzhen is a mother lode for anyone trying
to understand China. For global academia, and perhaps even more so for the world’s
media, it is a gold mine of stories, ideas and opportunities.

Over the past year or two, a curious phenomenon has swept across Western social 
media and, increasingly, Western society itself: **China-maxxing**, sometimes jokingly
described as "becoming Chinese."

"You met me at a very Chinese time in my life."

Yes, that viral internet phrase borrows its punchline from the Hollywood classic
_Fight Club_. Earlier this year, _The New York Times_ offered a wonderfully tongue-
in-cheek description of the trend in one of its features:  If you drink hot water,
wear slippers indoors or shop at Asian supermarkets, you may be Chinese, according
to the internet.

But here is what caught my attention.

When it comes to Shenzhen—and China more broadly—Western mainstream media can sometimes
be surprisingly slow on the uptake. Take China-maxxing. It only became a mainstream
media story, splashed across newspapers and television screens, earlier this year—
more than six months after a Twitter user, @Girl_virus, first posted about "becoming
Chinese."

To put it bluntly, China-maxxing was not exactly handed down to the mainstream media
from above. **The world’s netizens pushed it up there.**

_The New York Times_ even framed the provocative question this way in a headline:**
From Labubu to "becoming Chinese," has China become cool?**

Well, if the Times’ reporter comes to Shenzhen, I’ll make a pretty safe bet: he 
or she will come away thinking, **Shenzhen is super cool.**

So here’s my advice to my fellow journalists around the world: follow the lead of
those pioneering scholars. Get closer to Shenzhen. Walk into Shenzhen. Stay a little
longer. Look a little deeper. And then go farther afield.

There are simply too many fascinating stories here waiting to be told—and too many
forces behind those stories waiting to be decoded.

And here’s the best part.

More than two decades ago, Shenzhen residents already had the confidence to put 
it into one unforgettable slogan:

**"Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener."**

I suspect foreign correspondents arriving in Shenzhen today may discover their own
version of that old Shenzhen experience:

**Come for the story. Stay for the experience. Leave having become, at least a little
bit, a Shenzhener.**

And trust me, it’s going to be quite an experience. 

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  |  This article was produced by Cision PR Newswire, our trusted news partner. The views expressed and the content presented here are solely those of the author and may not fully reflect the opinions of Thailand Business News. |

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