I think you have this backwards. Milton Friedman was already raving about Hong Kong leading the world back in 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dfiWM-rsE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose
The first special economic zone was created in Shenzhen in 1980, coincidentally. It's population at that time was around 60k according to this link:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shenzhen-popu...
Hong Kong's population was in the millions at that time. The SEZ was created specifically to imitate HK and other successful neighboring economies.