China Plans To Sideline Hong Kong, Make Shenzhen A Global Model City

Amid rising and unprecedented turmoil in Hong Kong, China has unveiled plans to make Shenzhen a “model city” for China and the world. This may be evident that China is growing weary of Hong Kong and will simply sideline the former British colony and possibly Macau in favor of Shenzhen and other cities in Guangdong to form an economic and business hub.

Guangdong is a coastal province in South China, located on the north shore of the South China Sea with the city of Guangzhou as its center of politics, economy, science and education. Shenzhen lies about 25 km northeast of Hong Kong almost in-line with Guangzhou further inland. Shenzhen is accessible via the Zhujiang River estuary that feeds into Deep Bay or Shenzhen Bay. Freighters into China would have the option of bypassing Hong Kong and Macao in favor of Shenzhen.

Prior to the unrest in Hong Kong in February, Beijing announced the Greater Area Bay blueprint aimed at transforming surrounding cities into a combined economic powerhouse, with Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and Guangzhou identified as the four “pillars” of development. Those plans may have changed to exclude Hong Kong.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has more than once called for the Chinese industry to innovate and become more self-reliant. He sees the countries hi-tech sector as the key to self-reliance. The on-going trade war with the USA has added a sense of urgency in that Chinese companies face sanctions or a complete cut-off of hi-tech items like microchips.

Shenzhen was the original city chosen over 40 years ago as the side of China’s reform and opening-up experiment under leader Deng Xiaoping. State broadcaster CCTV reported the detailed current plan with a goal of making the city a leader in terms of innovation, public service and environmental protection by 2025.

The plan would make Shenzhen a model of “high-quality development, an example of law and order and civilization, as well as societal satisfaction and sustainability”. The plan named 2035 as the target for making the city a “benchmark” well into the middle of the century and stressed that Shenzhen would be the location of a “big data” center.

The most thinly veiled statement from the report said that “political change would be allowed” but under the “guidance” of the Ruling Communist Party. The report said that the plan would “expand people’s orderly political participation under the guidance of the party” while improving the work of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature. Good luck with that.