Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020 | Page 20

Non-Fiction – Group 3
Upstream or Downstream?
More Questions than Answers for
China’s Great Bay Area
Harrow International School Hong Kong, Wang, Jade – 13
The Pearl River Delta has captured the interest and imagination of many historians and
artists in the past. This famous estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea,
has once again captured our attention and awareness. Not just whether its water is flowing
upstream or downstream but what future lies for the cities in the Pearl River Delta.
The Greater Bay Area Initiative is China’s national drive to turn nine cities and two
special administrative regions of the Pearl River Delta into an economic powerhouse. The
eleven metropolia shall serve as the core of a megalopolis for the region’s political, economic,
communications, infrastructure, and urban development. The initiative is not a new
invention of sorts. There are more prominent megalopolises in the world, such as “BosWash”
or “So-Cal” in the United States and may have inspired China’s initiative in the Guangdong-
Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The main objective is to improve and innovate the
mechanisms of cooperation, complementarian and relationship to develop the cities of Hong
Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Huizhou,
Jiangmen and Zhaoqing into an integrated Greater Bay Area.
Think of it like a present-day Industrial Revolution where each area has a different goal
according to their characteristics. Hong Kong, for example, with its status as international,
financial, transportation and trade centre, will further strengthen its status as a global
offshore business hub and an international asset management centre. Macao, on the other
hand, shall take forward its development as a global tourism and leisure centre and foster the
appropriately diversified and sustainable development of the economy of Macao.
However, China’s Greater Bay Area Initiative also raise more questions than answers.
Will there be true integration amidst income and wealth inequality? What will happen
when people from a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita city like Hong Kong
and Macao live and work with those from a low Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita
city like Zhaoging and Jiangmen? Will the integration cause massive migration to enjoy the
benefits of “richer” cities like Hong Kong and Macau, forcing existing residents to “share”
their infrastructure and other social benefits with migrants? Further, as there are different tax
structures of the cities in the Greater Bay area, will the initiative give businesses more options
to avoid paying tax? When that happens, will this force the government to alter their tax
systems just to solve this problem and do so at the expense of upsetting the existing way of
doing business in that city?
As a citizen of Hong Kong, we must regard the initiative, not as a heedless observer but
an attuned stakeholder. The Greater Bay Area may have unique perspectives and ambitions to
become a world leader in manufacturing, innovation, shipping, trade and finance by 2030. It
is buoyed by potentials. Nevertheless, just like a river in a mountain or a hill, the fast running
water cuts away at the rocks. Although the Greater Bay Area Initiative has many benefits for
all the regions, there is one problem: cultural and political diversities of each region. A higher
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