Hong Kong’s destiny: a cultural bridge to China
Role promises to stretch well beyond the 30 years leading to full return to Beijing’s embrace
About 10 years ago, the difference in lifestyle and system between Hong Kong and the rest of China could be seen in 20 minutes, the time it took thousands of commuters to travel from Shenzhen to the Special Administrative Region (SAR) and vice versa each day. It was a trip between two worlds.
In Hong Kong, all was bright and shining, policemen stern but friendly, passengers queued up and cars lined up neatly along yellow lines on the asphalt.
In Shenzhen, all was drab and grey, despite the similar facilities. Policemen were too slack or too uptight, rigid like poles or fat from lack of exercise and too many “gratitude” meals. Nobody formed queues and cars were packed in muddled jams, held back only by iron barriers splitting the road.
Yet the very same people travelled back and forth between the two sides of this one China. Here was all the disparity between these two worlds: Beijing was trying to lead all of China to become like Hong Kong, while the sheer gravity of 1.4 billion people dragged Hong Kong to Shenzhen.
Ten years after the 1997 handover to Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong’s legacy of being a bridge for foreign investment into China was still lingering. Now that investments flow directly to Beijing or Shanghai, skipping Hong Kong, and financing is flowing out of China far more than into it, the situation at the two train stations on the commuter line has changed.