Inno-tech sector must be given wings to soar
Zhou Bajun notes comment from HKUST pioneer and Bay Area visionary that city has yet to take up his technology challenge
AHong Kong-based online media entity recently published an exclusive interview by its correspondent with Professor Woo Chia-wei, the very first president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Eighteen years ago, as a Hong Kong representative at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Woo put forward the concept of a Hong Kong-Shenzhen Bay Area and suggested Hong Kong develop innovation and technology. He predicted back then that inno-tech development might help the city soar or fall on its face because it is a business society that lacked wide vision and inno-tech awareness. The special administrative region government at that time inherited a rigid system, operated by old rules and had not formed the mindset of “Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong” or developed the heart to realize it. In the interview 18 years later he said Hong Kong has not soared or fallen on its face in terms of inno-tech development because it has not gone far enough either way.
That interview made me think deeply. The shortcomings of Hong Kong society Woo exposed 18 years ago are still there. He might sound bitter when he concluded Hong Kong had not soared or fallen in the past 18 years because it did little in inno-tech development but there was definitely sadness as well.
In the entire human history 18 years may be too short but it is precious to Hong Kong nevertheless. In the past 18 years Hong Kong’s socio-economic structural defects have worsened; attempts to address them went nowhere because they were not aimed at digging up the deepest roots. Meanwhile, many major cities on the Chinese mainland surpassed Hong Kong one way or another, with Hong Kong’s neighbor Shenzhen attracting worldwide attention as its inno-tech development skyrocketed. Even the current chancellor of Germany, which has been a standard-bearer in manufacturing industry development in the world for decades, took a purposeful trip to Shenzhen to examine the city’s inno-tech sector in her latest China visit.
Fortunately, President Xi Jinping’s response to a letter signed by 24 Hong Kong-based academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering and important instructions for relevant departments of the central government to support Hong Kong’s inno-tech development have offered the city a great opportunity to become an international inno-tech hub, in which it has no excuse not to succeed.
First of all, to build an international inno-tech hub, Hong Kong must make the whole Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area its home base. The SAR government and Hong Kongbased sci-tech research institutions understand it is impossible to construct a complete inno-tech industry value chain in Hong Kong because of its small market, which is why the SAR should focus on inno-tech research while seeking to industrialize the inventions in the Bay Area. Based on this understanding, the Hong Kong Science Park needs to increase funding for unicorn companies in the park while taking full advantage of the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park, currently under construction at the Lok Ma Chau Loop along the Shenzhen River.
Secondly, Hong Kong must formulate short-, intermediate- and long-term plans for systematic inno-tech development, aiming at industrializing a few worldclass inno-tech research achievements in two or three years’ time and create a few internationally leading inno-tech enterprises powered by Hong Kong’s inno-tech inventions in the next five to 10 years.
Currently there are 16 partner laboratories of State key labs and six sub-centers of national engineering research centers in Hong Kong. The SAR government can pick two or three of them that are capable of producing applicable results to fund in the next two or three years so their research will bear fruit as expected. In the meantime, the government needs to know all the details of the intermediateand long-term research plans of the Hong Kong-based partner labs of State key labs and engineering research subcenters so as to provide proper support.
Thirdly, to build a world-class innotech hub, Hong Kong must step up cooperation with Guangzhou and Shenzhen to enhance joint inno-tech development, particularly with the immediate neighbor. Since Shenzhen is now one of the leading inno-tech development cities on the mainland, Hong Kong has every reason to team up with the boomtown next door in inno-tech development by taking a complementary role. Together they can make a world-class inno-tech hub for sure.
Fourthly, to build Hong Kong into an international inno-tech hub the special administrative region government must be innovative in its own strategic thinking. The mainland has long run a fiscal deficit while Hong Kong has always enjoyed fiscal surplus. With this in mind, it is not difficult at all to appreciate the central government’s generosity in funding Hong Kong-based research institutions working on State sci-tech research projects instead of telling the SAR government to make it on its own. That is enough reason for Hong Kong to increase funding for its own innotech development no matter where it is needed, including on the other side of the boundary.
It is up to the current-term and nextterm SAR governments to find a way to make up for the 18 years already lost. By 2020 Hong Kong must achieve real progress toward becoming an international inno-tech hub.