Barun Roy: Hong Kong-ising China

ASIA FILE

Back in 1984, when China and Great Britain were negotiating Hong Kong's future under Chinese sovereignty and doomsayers were predicting the territory's inevitable economic death, one person seemed to know for sure what the future held.

He was Lord Lawrence Kadoorie, the famous Hong Kong industrialist, hotelier and philanthropist, and I was interviewing him for a magazine article. Seated in his office, flanked by his famed collection of jade artefacts and statuary, he spoke with the firm conviction of a soothsayer, not of the China-isation of Hong Kong but of the eventual Hong Kong-isation of China and of a Geater Hong Kong emerging in the Pearl River Delta and across the rest of southern China.

Twenty-one years after we had this conversation and 12 years after his death in 1993, this is what's actually happening. Hong Kong's physical barriers with the mainland are being wiped out in a systematic manner to remove the hassles of travel and create a vast, common economic courtyard.

Every day, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the vast Chinese hinterland are coming closer and closer, and Hong Kong's special role as the world's conduit into China and China's into the world is becoming clearer and clearer. And the closer Hong Kong gets to China, the more apparent becomes its influence, in kind and in spirit, on the mainland.

Three border crossings already exist between Hong Kong and China "" at Lok Ma Chau, Sha Tau Kok, and Man Kam To "" and a fourth will be added this December, tripling the capacity for cross-boundary traffic. The HK$3.2 billion western corridor, a 5.5 km, three-lane dual carriageway with spectacular cable-stayed spans across Deep Bay, will satisfy future demand and entrench the SAR's position as the hub of the Pearl River Delta.

Two years ago, a high-speed ferry hub was added to the Hong Kong International Airport to allow passengers transiting to and from Pearl River Delta destinations to skirt customs and immigration formalities in Hong Kong. The journey between the delta and the airport can now be made by ferry in just two hours, against four that it takes to do the same journey overland by coach.

Even so, the current transport linkage between the delta and Hong Kong is considered weak. Present estimates say, by 2020, passenger flows between the eastern and western banks of the Greater Pearl River Delta would reach between 184 million and 240 million while freight traffic could reach as high as 220 million tonnes a year.

By that time, Hong Kong airport itself will possibly be handling 87 million passengers and 9 million tonnes of cargo yearly. Such massive movements need massive infrastructural support to keep the economy running at top gear.

To make the connection even more seamless, a grand new project is now on the anvil to link up Hong Kong with Macau, and Zhuhai by a road bridge. It will be a 29-km long artery, taking off from near Hong Kong International Airport on Lantau Island and extending due west across the sea to A Perola in Macau and Gongbei in Zhuhai.

The brainchild of the visionary Hong Kong entrepreneur, Gordon Wu, the project is expected to cost between $2 billion and $3.7 billion and will be funded primarily by private investors.

The immediate physical benefit of the bridge will be that Macau and Zhuhai can be reached from Hong Kong within half an hour, against four to five hours by existing land routes. But the main benefit will be psychological.

All sense of distance and remoteness will be instantly obliterated and the entire Pearl River West will come within a three-hour transport network that radiates from Hong Kong at its centre. The sea will cease to be a barrier and the entire region will begin to form one economic whole, unlike anything in the past.

A large swath of less-developed southern China will thus be able to plug into the global marketplace using Hong Kong as its interface. This integration, enabling a vastly increased flow of people, goods and capital, will not only encourage mainland tourism but immensely strengthen Hong Kong's logistics role in China's economic development.

By the end of this year, a Digital Trade and Transportation Network System will be launched in Hong Kong providing logistics players with a neutral and secure interface for the exchange of information and data in no fewer than 18 mainland service sectors, including transport, freight forwarding, and storage and warehousing. At the same time, a site close to Hong Kong International Airport is being developed for the establishment of a value-added logistics park.

This dual enhancement of Hong Kong's catchment area, in terms of physical and logistical infrastructure, will unquestionably secure the SAR's position as Asia's gateway to China, far removed from the doom that many had predicted.