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Greater Bay Area
Opinion
Winston Mok
Winston Mok

The View | China’s upstart Bay Area could surpass the US original if Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou work together

  • Winston Mok says the Pearl River Delta is not yet on a par with California’s Bay Area or the Boston-Washington corridor, but the infrastructure connecting the Chinese region’s cities could boost its competitiveness significantly

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The Lok Ma Chau border bridge (right) connects Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The Chinese government plans to link Hong Kong, Shenzhen and nine other cities in the Pearl River Delta region into an integrated economic and business hub under its Greater Bay Area scheme. Photo: Roy Issa
Winston Mok
Even as the Democrats take over the House, the US map of Congressional seats looks mostly red. Blue pockets are concentrated on the US’ West Coast and the Northeast. But it is not geographic size that counts. California and the Boston-Washington corridor represent just 6 per cent of US land area. Yet California alone is the fifth-largest economy in the world. Together with the US’ Northeast, it would make the world’s third-largest economic entity.

If these two regions were to be splintered from the US, a politically polarised and fractured nation, its economy would be one-third smaller. More importantly, the US would lose its most affluent, influential and innovative regions. What would be left of the US, still larger than China’s economy today, would be a second-rate nation.

Likewise, without the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, China would lose much of its economic dynamism. China’s top two economic regions are collectively about the size of the German economy, the world’s fourth-largest, and are poised to surpass Japan’s economy, the world’s third-largest, before 2025. China’s rejuvenation would be much more difficult without the Yangtze River Delta, which was the world’s top economic region for most of the past millennium.
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Instead of national rivalry between the two great powers, real competition is among leading economic regions – clusters of world-class cities with dense economic networks.

China’s top two economic regions are comparable to the US’ top two in many ways. They both represent about a third of their national economies. They are centres of innovation and commerce. In a globalised world with rapid technological changes, these mega regions only grow in importance, defining the competitiveness of their nations.

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