Hong Kong has opened a new chapter of governance and rejuvenation

Ho Chun Chi

The eyes of the world are once again focused on Hong Kong. July 1 marks the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland and the official performance of the new SAR government team created under the new election system. A new chapter in Hong Kong's development is about to begin, and many people are looking forward to hong Kong's future.

A few days ago, Li Jiachao, chief executive-designate of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said in an interview with the media, "The next five years are a critical period for Hong Kong to be governed and prosperous, and I will go all out to do the best in all my work and strive to build a Hong Kong with care, integration, and diversified development." ”

Hong Kong's greatest achievement is its gradual integration into the new pattern of national development

Since Hong Kong's return to the motherland, it has made many achievements that have attracted worldwide attention. In the past 25 years, as a great initiative unprecedented in the past, "one country, two systems" has achieved universally recognized success.

Judging from the development process of the country, in the 25 years of practice in Hong Kong, under the principle of "one country, two systems", a set of institutional systems based on the central government's overall jurisdiction over Hong Kong has been continuously improved in accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law.

Among them, the promulgation of the National Security Law and the new election system has played the primary role of filling in the loopholes in the system, obviously playing a role in correcting chaos and laying the foundation for Hong Kong from chaos to governance.

At the same time, the promulgation of these two systems has built up the pattern and framework of Hong Kong's basic system design, and laid the overall principle and institutional foundation of "patriots governing Hong Kong". At the same time, it also provides the basis for the next step of governance reform of the Hong Kong SAR government.

From Hong Kong's point of view, over the past 25 years, Hong Kong's economy has been in a state of continuous development, and Hong Kong's business environment, international competitiveness, governance index, etc. have been at the forefront of the world.

In the past 25 years, the biggest change in Hong Kong has been the gradual integration into the new pattern of national development, the degree of exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong has become deeper and deeper, and a variety of elements have flowed between the mainland and Hong Kong, forming a situation of "you have me, I have you".

However, this process of interaction has also been labeled by some people as Hong Kong's increasingly "mainlandized", which is nothing more than a misunderstanding from two aspects: First, from a political point of view, slandering Hong Kong is changing from "one country, two systems" to "one country, one system".

Earlier, when listening to the debriefing report of Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, President Xi Jinping stressed that the major turning point in Hong Kong's transition from chaos to governance once again showed a profound truth, that is, to ensure that the practice of "one country, two systems" is stable and far-reaching, we must always adhere to the principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong."

At present, the basic framework of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong is developing healthily, and the "one country, one system" argument is completely untenable.

Second, from an economic point of view, mainland enterprises have become more and more active in investing in Hong Kong, especially in the increasing proportion of Hong Kong's capital market, and some people use this as the basis for Hong Kong's "mainlandization". If we look at the overall situation in Hong Kong, we can see that mainland enterprises are mainly more active in hong Kong's finance, fresh water and fresh food for basic livelihood security, while in other areas, mainland enterprises are less involved.

Explore new rules of global trade for the next era

This year, whether it is for Hong Kong or the development of the entire Greater Bay Area, it is an important new starting point for development.

The 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland coincides with the 5th anniversary of the signing of the Framework Agreement on Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation and Promoting the Construction of the Greater Bay Area, and the 3rd anniversary of the implementation of the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. When several important nodes collide, what kind of sparks will collide? What are the opportunities for Hong Kong?

The construction of the Greater Bay Area as a major national strategy has not been formally proposed for a long time, and under the intensive introduction of policies, there is great support. In mid-June, the State Council issued the Overall Plan for Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Comprehensive Cooperation in Guangzhou nansha for the world, which supports Nansha to build a major strategic platform based on the Bay Area, coordinating Hong Kong and Macao, and facing the world. This is another major decision and deployment made by the CPC Central Committee on the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area after the introduction of the two cooperation zone plans of Hengqin and Qianhai last year. Among them, it includes the construction of "hard connectivity" such as the "Greater Bay Area on track", as well as the "soft connectivity" that allows Hong Kong and Macao residents in the mainland to enjoy institutional rules such as "citizen treatment".

To make the construction of the Greater Bay Area better benefit Hong Kong and the people, this requires Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to exert their joint efforts. The three places need to deepen the intergovernmental cooperation model, so as to further promote the deepening of people-to-people exchanges and cooperation among the three places, and enhance the overall quality of the integrated development of the Greater Bay Area.

To build the Greater Bay Area from the perspective of national strategy, the three places must achieve the convergence of rules, which is very critical for the further implementation of the Greater Bay Area strategy. At the same time, it is also necessary to introduce some excellent commercial and civil rules in the world to further enhance the overall level of the economy of the Greater Bay Area, so as to accelerate the realization of the national strategy of going global. We hope to explore new trade rules for the world in the next era of complex globalization through the docking and convergence of rules.

With the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the deepening of the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the positioning of Hong Kong is very clear, that is, the "eight major centres", which includes four traditional centres such as further upgrading international finance, shipping and trade, and also supports Hong Kong's construction of four new centres, such as an international innovation and technology centre.

The Greater Bay Area has a big future. "Looking back on these five years of work, the most exciting thing is the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area." Carrie Lam said a few days ago, "Hong Kong's future development must be integrated into the overall situation of national development. ”

If Hong Kong wants to build an international innovation and technology center, the primary task is to connect the innovation chain and industrial chain of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to form a complete chain. As a new production factor, the ability of scientific and technological innovation will improve the gold content of industrial development in the Greater Bay Area, thereby promoting the goal of high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. Then, under the dual "blessing" of the innovation and technology center and high-end manufacturing industry, the future Greater Bay Area will be a gathering place for talents, especially high-end talents, and even a highland for the world's talents, and at that time, the Greater Bay Area will also become a world-class Greater Bay Area.

Aim at the global talent highland and open up the space for youth to rise

Looking at Hong Kong's development in the past 25 years, there are still some areas where there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Since the beginning of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the Hong Kong SAR government has been planning to upgrade Hong Kong's economic level and achieve industrial transformation and upgrading. However, it has to be admitted that Hong Kong's economy is becoming more and more "hollowed out", the real economy and the financial system have been significantly differentiated, and the upward mobility channel of some groups is not smooth, which is reflected in the existence of certain problems in Hong Kong's redistribution system. Specifically, a series of people's livelihood problems represented by housing have not been well solved in Hong Kong, which can be said to be an unsuccessful side of Hong Kong to a certain extent.

Under the impact of pluralism, the cognition of individual young people in Hong Kong has deviated. One issue worth studying in depth is that a small group of younger Hong Kong youth have been involved in several social movements in Hong Kong.

An individual's political identity is associated with multiple factors and is always in flux. First of all, this has a certain relationship with the material basis, and the economic "hollowing-out" to a certain extent leads to the shrinking of the space for young people's upward development, and the proportion of personal struggle efforts and benefits cannot be fully matched. At the same time, in the era of information explosion, the information received by young people is muddy, coupled with the limited vision of young people, it is easy to be affected.

To enhance Hong Kong's young people's sense of identity with the motherland, it is necessary to "grasp with both hands". First, at the material level, Hong Kong needs to open up the channels for the upward mobility of young people and provide them with broad space for development. Second, in the governance link, Hong Kong needs to think about how to further implement the "patriots governing Hong Kong", so that more patriotic and Hong Kong talents can give full play to their talents in various posts, and cultivate more talents who love the country and Hong Kong, so as to promote the further development of Hong Kong.

Whether it is to change the problem of the "hollowing out" of Hong Kong's economy or to provide more development opportunities for Young people in Hong Kong, it is a very important choice to seize the new opportunities for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Hong Kong's development needs to grasp two key points: First, the SAR government needs to reform the governance system and establish a new governance system that can adapt to the new situation, meet the needs of the construction of the "eight centres" and the strategic needs of the Greater Bay Area.

The second is to truly mobilize the enthusiasm of all sectors of Hong Kong society. It is crucial to upgrade Hong Kong's economic level and mobilize local forces to explore Hong Kong's distribution plan and improve Hong Kong's livelihood system. At the same time, we will mobilize enterprises from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to work together to develop, give full play to the advantages of Hong Kong's "super contact", and let enterprises in the three places jointly develop and build the Greater Bay Area, and go out of the Greater Bay Area and go to the world. (The author is Executive Vice President of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Development Research Institute of Sun Yat-sen University and Vice President of the National Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies)

(China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Zhao Limei, Lin Jie, interview and collation)

Source: China Youth Daily client