Bay Area success significant step in nation’s growth
Yang Sheng says the visit to five GBA cities by Hong Kong’s LegCo members was a great opportunity for them to broaden their thinking
Members of four subcommittees of the Legislative Council, including nine members of opposition parties, took a trip to five mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area over the weekend (Friday through Sunday). This was to learn more about the progress that has been made all around Hong Kong in building up the GBA city cluster in a coordinated manner. The three-day tour of Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan and Guangzhou was considered a good opportunity for the LegCo members to see how much the five nearby cities have achieved in the past 40 years of reform and opening-up and learn first hand about their development plans in respect to the Bay Area city cluster.
Many Hong Kong residents believe the GBA visit was far more significant to opposition members of LegCo than to their pro-establishment colleagues for obvious reasons. They are therefore disappointed that only nine “pan-democrats” took the trip. Still, the public response to news about the GBA tour by LegCo members has been quite positive. This is an indication of the popular support and expectations for LegCo members and opposition lawmakers in particular. They can recognize and respect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong society regarding the city’s future development along with that of the nation. After all, what matters most is the well-being of Hong Kong residents — not the personal ambitions of individual lawmakers.
The development of the GBA city cluster is another significant step in the national development strategy following the Belt and Road Initiative, which was announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013. It aims, in addition to the development of the Pearl River Delta region, to pave the way for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao SAR to integrate into the overall development strategy of the country and strengthen its status in the ongoing paradigm shift known as globalization. It is doing this through increased involvement in the mainland economy — which is currently the second largest in the world. Despite attempts by some public figures to remind people of Hong Kong’s past under British rule, especially its rise as one of four “Asian Tigers” in the 1970s and 1980s with very limited help from the mainland, the reality is that those days are long gone and can never be brought back.
After China and the United Kingdom signed the Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong on Dec 19, 1984, most if not all mainstream Western media could not help in raising all kinds of worst-case scenarios for Hong Kong under China’s sovereign rule. Some went so far as to declare the “death of Hong Kong” as they knew it. The fact is some members of the political opposition are still trapped in this long obsolete mindset; they refuse to abandon attempts to prove themselves right by sabotaging Hong Kong’s longterm prosperity and stability under “one country, two systems” with “political dissent” — including the advocacy of separatism. Not surprisingly they find anything designed to facilitate Hong Kong’s integration into the overall development strategy of the nation unacceptable.
Let’s hope the opposition lawmakers, after seeing the immense progress of this part of the country, could realize the huge potential of the Bay Area development as well as the bright prospects it offers to the SAR and its residents, especially the younger generation. Each with their unique characteristics, the different cities in this cluster complement each other and together they form a promising picture. The central government has pinned high hopes on this project and hopefully the lawmakers would be enlightened enough after this trip to dedicate their efforts to make this project a success, for Hong Kong and for the country.