POLITICs
I
n 1994, Wu Jiawei, then president of the Hong Kong Univer-
sity of Science and Technology, proposed the concept of a Hong
Kong Bay Area, inspired by his fond memories of San Francisco
in the US. Back in 1983, he became the president of San Francisco
State University and lived in the city for five years, seeing the region’s
robust economy bolstered by the bay area.
He did not anticipate that 23 years later his concept would be add-
ed to the government work report, becoming a piece of regional stra-
tegic planning at the national level. The concept is officially termed
the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, comprising
Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in neighbouring Guangdong
Province.National Strategy
The Greater Bay Area is not an unfamiliar term for the govern-
ment, business or academia. It is an updated version of previous re-
gional development initiatives, such as the Pearl River Delta and the
Pan-Pearl River Delta. From academic debates and local governmentplanning to the proposal of the national strategy, its overall remit
transformed from the construction of simply a cluster of cities to a
national bay area.
Tan Gang, vice president of the Shenzhen Party School, had a clear
explanation of how a local planning item was finally put on the na-
tional agenda. “It came true thanks to the efforts of three sides – aca-
demic research, proposals by the government and feedback from the
public,” he told ChinaReport.
Tan said Shenzhen was the first city to make the Greater Bay Area
development a priority for urban planning, from late 2013. In early
2015, Tan made a proposal to the government to boost the bay area
and for the first time proposed the concept of the Greater Bay Area.
The concept is based on the successes of well-known bay areas in
New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. It is generally accepted that ur-
ban development in recent years is closely related to the development
of bay areas. According to statistics from the World Bank, 60 percent
of global aggregate economic volume was concentrated in the world’s
estuary areas. The aggregate economies of New York, San FranciscoThe Greater Bay Area
A Closer ConneCtion
The Greater Bay Area will provide strong support for an upgraded economy in southern China,
but administrative barriers and traditional ways of thinking need to be discarded
By Min Jie