Abstract
Abstract Between 1979 and 1982, 20,000 troops from the People's Liberation Army Engineering Corps travelled from military-industrial sites in the interior to Shenzhen, China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ). They were the first batch of state-sponsored migrants to the SEZ and the pioneer builders of the city's urban infrastructure. This article uses the case of military workers in the SEZ to examine state–market relations during the early phase of China's post-socialist transition. On one hand, the Deng administration strategically repurposed a disciplined labour force from Mao's command economy to jump-start marketization. On the other hand, the Mao-era power structure of the Engineering Corps not only persisted but became even more entrenched in the SEZ at the forefront of China's reform. The higher one's military rank was before demobilization, the more easily one could monetize socialist-era political credentials, particularly by taking advantage of the rising value of land in Shenzhen's urbanization process. Academic credentials served as a moderate booster of status within the public sector and a more powerful ingredient leading to success for private entrepreneurs. The lower the military rank before demobilization, the less meaningful the agency to obtain material rewards commensurate with past contributions.
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