New blueprint entails closer HK-Shenzhen cooperation

There has been no shortage of sideline naysayers who keep telling us about the looming decline or demise of Hong Kong. They did so when Hong Kong was returned to China in July 1997, when the GDP of Shenzhen overtook that of Hong Kong in 2018, and when the National Security Law was promulgated in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Now the central government’s announcement of a master plan to turn Shenzhen into a core engine of reform has given the naysayers a new reason to “foresee” a less-significant Hong Kong in national development.

But those self-styled prophets have never been right. And this time won’t be an exception.

The new blueprint that charts Shenzhen’s development from 2020 to 2025, which was issued by the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Sunday, is to seek an appropriate model for furthering nationwide economic reform, with the ultimate objective of achieving high-quality growth and development for the whole nation.

While focusing on Shenzhen’s medium-term development, the five-year plan has a vision for long-term national development and was unveiled after the announcement of the new economic development pattern of “dual circulation”. It offers not even the slightest hint of “a less-significant

Hong Kong”. Rather, it specifically calls for a higher level of ShenzhenHong Kong cooperation.

For example, there are a lot of opportunities for cooperation between the two cities in areas such as science and innovation, healthcare and education. As a matter of fact, fast-moving Hong Kong entrepreneurs have started exploring opportunities for expanding their healthcare and education businesses in Shenzhen. Shenzhen will prove to be the stepping stone for Hong Kong’s players expanding their operations to other mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which has a huge market by virtue of its population of 70 million.

The Bay Area is so large that it can accommodate and indeed it requires more than one growth engine. There is more than enough space in the region for both Shenzhen and Hong Kong, as well as other partner cities, to put their respective advantages to full use and therefore benefit from its development.

The greatest threat to Hong Kong’s future role in or significance to national development comes not from a rising Shenzhen but from quite a few Hong Kong residents’ reluctance to further the integration of the SAR’s development into the national development strategy because of unwarranted political or ideological bigotry.