OPINION – The “We Feeling” in the Greater Bay Area!

José Luís de Sales Marques

Economist

The mobility of Macau and Hong Kong non-Chinese residents through Mainland China has been given a significant boost with the issuance of a new travel permit.

In a move that will have a significant impact on the lives of Macau and Hong Kong non-Chinese residents, the Chinese government began issuing, on July 10, an e-card multi-entry travel permit to those residents with permanent status. Valid for five years, each entry allows a maximum stay of 90 days.

These cards will enable thousands of people in both Special Administrative Regions to circulate hassle-free in the Mainland for purposes such as investment, visiting relatives, tourism, business, seminars, and exchanges. They can enter and exit as many times as needed and even use the e-channels to cross the Shenzhen-Hong Kong and Zhuhai-Macau checkpoints. This policy is welcomed by all who wish to travel across China for these purposes and is particularly significant for tourism, business, and participation in seminars and academic exchanges. Although the visas do not allow for study and work, they will definitely impact the Greater Bay Area (GBA) attractiveness, providing these non-Chinese residents with a “we feeling” – a sense that the region has opened up significantly for their contribution to the creation of a dynamic, internationally competitive, and multi-dimensional economic powerhouse. It is also a show of trust from the Chinese government to these segments of their SARs’ society, who have deep feelings of love and belonging to their cities. In the case of Macau, it is even more relevant as an incentive for non-Chinese residents to further participate in the implementation of the Hengqin In-depth Cooperation Zone.

By introducing new policies that will facilitate the mobility of the two SARs’ non-Chinese residents across the area and beyond, the central authorities are providing the best possible incentive for them to enjoy the natural landscape, excellent cuisine, and fantastic culture of other neighbouring cities.

Regional integration, in general, is always a complex process that requires, according to experts, the construction over time of multiple synergies and a strong sense of belonging. The so-called “we-feeling,” a sense of identity, is the basis of human voluntary participation and contribution, smoothing what is hard to achieve and sustaining what has been accomplished. Good policies and technical solutions will always have a strong impact, but in the long run, the “we feeling” will dictate the success or failure of regionalisation. We could cite several examples, but none better than the Erasmus program in the European Union, which has provided the perfect ground for young students to build up a sense of Europeaness, independent of which country they come from and the temporary hurdles or even hard crises the Union has to face, such as the ongoing one.

There is no doubt that building up the Greater Bay Area is much different from European integration. First and foremost, it involves the construction of a sub-unit of the Chinese nation under the guidance of centralised political direction from Beijing, with the participation of provincial and regional governments of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, under the principle of “one country, two systems.”

Nevertheless, because it encompasses the 9+2 cities, it still has to deal with all the complexities and challenges coming from different political, economic, and social structures associated with “two systems” to achieve the goal of building an integrated economic reality by 2035, as the original guidelines of the GBA strongly state. When it was officially established with the signing of the framework agreement in Hong Kong on July 1, 2017, the world stood bewildered by the grandiosity and audacity of its purposes and the relatively short period it would take to accomplish its main goals. Mobility across the whole new area was the first feature attracting international attention, with the goal of connecting those eleven cities within no more than an hour’s trip being almost mind-blowing! However, some very impressive infrastructure projects to make it happen were already completed (high-speed trains, metro, highways) or almost completed, such as the 55km Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge. The GBA implementation, like so much else in the world, was hindered by the three years of the COVID crisis. However, legislation and measures continued to develop, facilitating the mobility of the two SARs’ Chinese citizens and encouraging their establishment in core cities.

By introducing new policies that will facilitate the mobility of the two SARs’ non-Chinese residents across the area and beyond, the central authorities are providing the best possible incentive for them to enjoy the natural landscape, excellent cuisine, and fantastic culture of other neighbouring cities. This increases their “we feeling” of belonging to the region and encourages their participation at every level in the successful construction of the GBA and contribution to the national economy.