Hong Kong still has the edge over Shenzhen and other Chinese cities, despite the protests
- Any plan to sideline the defiant former British colony ignores the central role the financial hub plays for China’s economy
- Its rule of law and various freedoms, attributes of an open economy, have become even more valuable now amid the US-China trade war
This is widely seen as an effort to punish and sideline the defiant former British colony, even though Hong Kong has played a critical role in helping to transform Shenzhen from a backwater into a modern metropolis and a hub of innovation and hi-tech developments for the nation.
The plan would allow wide-ranging reforms to make the special economic zone a global “benchmark” for competitiveness and influence by the middle of the century, a role now played mainly by Hong Kong.
Shenzhen has prospered by modelling Hong Kong-style market capitalism, rather than following Beijing’s socialist planning dogma. Hong-Kong-invested firms, not state-owned enterprises, have played the decisive role in its economic success, particularly in the early days between the 1980s and 1990s.
Despite Hong Kong’s declining importance to the national economy due to mainland’s four-decade-long economic boom, the city still has irreplaceable value to China’s development. It is a natural gateway not only to and from the mainland but also to the rest of the world. Multicultural Hong Kong has the advantage of having a global perspective that no other Chinese city – neither Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou nor Shenzhen – could have had.