President Xi calls on more young Hongkongers to work, study, live in mainland China in speech holding up Shenzhen as model city

Name: China must rely on its ‘internal market for innovation’, says sociology Prof Lau Siu Kai
Uploaded: 2020-10-14T08:36:21.000Z
Duration: 5 min 27 s
Description: China must rely on its ‘internal market for innovation’, says sociology Prof Lau Siu Kai

Xi gives Shenzhen a mission to revitalise ‘one country, two systems’ as he launches new era of integration for southern China

President appeals to Hong Kong’s youth to experience life on the mainland to ‘bring their hearts closer to the motherland’

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President Xi Jinping’s Shenzhen speech is shown on a public screen in Hong Kong. Photo: Bloomberg

Tony Cheung

Published: 4:36pm, 14 Oct 2020Updated: 4:42pm, 15 Oct 2020

President Xi Jinping has urged more young Hongkongers to work, study and live in mainland China as he hailed Shenzhen’s role as an “important engine” of the Greater Bay Area project, during celebrations marking the Guangdong city’s 40th anniversary as a special economic zone.

Xi told attendees at the Shenzhen ceremony on Wednesday that the city’s meteoric rise showed what could be achieved through the comprehensive and accurate implementation of “one country, two systems”, referring to the governing principle under which Hong Kong is part of China but promised a measure of autonomy.

“We must foster the integrated development of the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, and they must foster each other’s development,” he said.

“The party has high hopes for Shenzhen … It needs to push forward the bay area plan and enrich the new practices in the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’. These are historic missions that the party is giving to Shenzhen in the new era.”

Under the Greater Bay Area project, Beijing aims to turn Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and eight other Guangdong cities into a technology and finance powerhouse rivalling California’s Silicon Valley by 2035.

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China must rely on its ‘internal market for innovation’, says sociology Prof Lau Siu Kai

During his 50-minute speech in Shenzhen’s Qianhai development zone, the president recounted how the city’s gross domestic product had soared from 270 million yuan in 1980 to 2.7 trillion yuan in 2019, the fifth-highest in Asia.