Can ‘one country, multiple systems’ work for China’s bay area development?
David Ketchum and Scott Cheng say the different political, legal and economic systems of the cities comprising the Greater Bay Area make the scheme distinct from other megacities around the world. The ancient Greek city states, however, might provide inspiration
The phrase “bay area” immediately conjures up images of the San Francisco success story – melding the innovation of Stanford University and Silicon Valley with the financial muscle of downtown San Francisco. It’s little wonder that the Chinese government has branded its plan, to bring together the disparate urban elements of the Pearl River Delta, the “Greater Bay Area”.
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Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York are historical precedents of successful cities with global access thanks to their harbours. However, the comparisons with the initiative in southern China don’t extend very far because each of the other bay area cities evolved and expanded in a centrifugal way to engulf adjacent suburbs and form monster metropolises. The Greater Bay Area concept, on the other hand, requires that diverse smaller and larger – and sometimes competing – cities be brought together under a centrally mandated plan.
The government work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang in March last year formally identified the Greater Bay Area as a key component of China’s strategic national development plan. Bringing together Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Macau – as well as Zhuhai, Huizhou, Dongguan, Foshan, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing and Zhongshan – with more collaboration and physical, economic, social, cultural and no doubt political integration is on the cards in the coming years. With the opening of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge and the express rail link, these cities will be between 10 and 50 per cent closer together in travel time. That physical manifestation will be one of the first signs of the Greater Bay Area gradually taking shape, but nobody is sure what its final form will look like.
What are the chances that the Greater Bay Area will rival if not outdo other global megacities? Today, the combined area of the planned Greater Bay Area houses 66 million people and has a gross domestic product of US$1.4 trillion (HK$10.95 trillion). Compare this with the San Francisco Bay Area’s 7.6 million people and GDP of US$800 billion, Greater Tokyo’s 37.8 million people and GDP of US$1.6 trillion and Greater New York’s 20 million people and GDP of US$1.5 trillion and the potential is immediately clear.
However, the success model is by no means assured. The cultural differences between these adjacent cities are evident in day-to-day commerce and social interactions. An immediate complicating factor is that Hong Kong and Macau do not share the same government, legal and tax systems and most importantly, business practices with each another or Shenzhen, Macau, Zhuhai and Guangzhou. Because a market economy still prevails in Hong Kong while a planned economic system prevails in other cities, the policy objectives and the pace of the creation of the Greater Bay Area vary considerably. Although in 30 years the physical customs and border controls separating Hong Kong from the rest of the cities in the Greater Bay Area may not exist, they stop unrestricted flows of money, people and goods in the region. The unique attributes of and differences between Manhattan, Brooklyn and northern New Jersey help make the New York City metro region great, but there is no immigration checkpoint on the Brooklyn Bridge or in the Holland Tunnel.
One way forward is to set aside political complexity in order to achieve economic success with a council in the spirit of ancient Greek city states
