Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020 | Page 21

Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2020
number of Hongkongers remain deeply divided about the Greater Bay Area plan. Many feel
multi-billion-dollar infrastructural projects like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau mega bridge
and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link threaten the city’s freedoms,
as China’s embrace grows tighter and tighter. Hong Kong has a democracy and its own legal
and political system under the “one country, two systems” arrangement. This high degree of
autonomy was promised Hong Kong until 2047. Hongkongers, nevertheless, fear the city is
slowly losing its unique identity. In 2017, for example, Beijing decided it would pre-screen the
candidates standing for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive. It sparked the Hong Kong democracy
protest called “The Umbrella Movement”, who say Beijing’s decision as a violation of the
“one country, two systems” principle. A public opinion survey conducted by the University
of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program showed distrust in Beijing’s Central Government
in the first half of 2018 hit the second-highest level since the handover. Results from the poll
of 1,000 people revealed the younger the respondent, the less proud they felt about becoming
a Chinese national citizen, and the more negative they were about the Central Government’s
policies on Hong Kong.
In other similar initiatives such as San Francisco Bay in the Northern California and
Greater Tokyo in Japan, there were no different laws, to begin. That is not the case here.
There are three distinctly different laws in this Greater Bay Area. Will this mean trouble
for many aspects of life? Only recently, Mainland Chinese tourists visited Tung Chung in
large numbers on Sunday via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, sparking complaints
from residents. Shops and restaurants in Tung Chung, the area closest to the bridge’s pier,
were filled with tourists, as residents raised concerns about overcrowding. Tung Chung
resident Mr Ng said the area “no longer looked like Hong Kong.” Thus, the high influx of
visitors has sparked complaints from residents, with local community group Tung Chung
Future launching a “Reclaim Tung Chung” action group to report illegal tour groups. Upon
the other hand, a dozen members of the pro-Beijing group “Treasure Group” launched
a counter-protest in Tung Chung urging residents to welcome mainland tourists, since
Hongkongers and mainland people are “compatriots.”
Indeed, many great towns and megacities are built on the riverside. The direction in
which the Greater Bay Area Initiative is “flowing” is met with some curves, rocks and pebbles
along the way. Will the Pearl River Delta’s Greater Bay Area Initiative be an immense success
and astonishing economic growth? We may have some answers, some theories, but the most
basic are lots of questions. Only the future can tell if the Greater Bay Area Initiative will flow
upstream and be China’s greatest economic redevelopment; or downstream to nowhere and
be China’s most notable failure.
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