GABRIEL ... Congrats.

Your piece was published today as the LEAD in our hard copy's COMMENT page, but dated
yesterday (Sunday) in our online copy (below) which I have just forwarded to the honchos at the Commerce and Economic
Bureau, which deals with HK's investment in PRD, and my usual 80 contacts. It took up most of the upper half of the page.
The only thing missing is your portrait which ideally should have been published alongside it. Please send me ASAP your
mugshot taken in at least one megabite. I can still can get my technician to insert it into your online copy. But you have the
right to refuse publication of your photo. Your decision. Thank you for your contribution. Looking forward to the next one.

btw: Any plans to drop by this year ? Apc early notice.

Albert

=0=

http://www.chinadailyasia.com/opinion/2016-03/06/content_15395134.html

Sunday, March 6, 2016, 23:20

HK’s future links with PRD region

CHINA DAILY HK EDITION

By Gabriel Donleavy

Gabriel Donleavy says the SAR should embrace its destiny as the jewel in the crown of a Pearl River Delta (PRD)
megalopolis to achieve a new identity

The atmosphere surrounding Hong Kong’s 2016 Budget was somewhat somber. There was talk of a bleak outlook, of a Hong
Kong economy laden with risks in the coming year, of a new decline in exports and retail sales, of the worst year for several
economic indicators since 2008’s global financial crisis. Yet there have been reductions in salaries tax, a raising of the
dependent parent allowance, and boosts for local filmmakers.

Acute social conflicts will increase uncertainty in the already adverse economic environment as “politics and economics are
closely intertwined”, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said.

He expressed optimism for the future as he recounted how Hong Kong had survived past crises. “Our journey has been fraught
with wars, poverty, epidemics, economic recessions and financial crises. In spite of all these scourges and storms, we have
always been able to find a way out,” Tsang said.

There is a rising nervousness about anti-mainland elements in Hong Kong breaking out in riotous behavior and the financial
chief was channeling such nervousness in his speech very clearly. What I think is needed is new but practical vision for Hong
Kong that channels the energy of its youth and reassures the anxieties of its majority, so that fear is replaced by well-founded
hope. This begins with a reframing. The rest of this piece elaborates such a reframing.

The long first incarnation of Hong Kong is nearly over. For over a century it has been for the modern world what Constantinople
was for the medieval Western world, what Venice was for the Age of Exploration and, since 1842, it has been a principal filter of
Western trade and influence with China. Even after the handover in 1997, that old role persisted in steadily attenuating form as
China modernized, industrialized and quickly recovered the global profile it had had a millennium earlier under the Tang
Dynasty. Financially, Hong Kong is still the freest of China’s big three capital markets, and that is the most substantial anchor of
its post-1997 identity.
However, the time is bound to come in the next 20 years when the mainland becomes the world’s major economy and by then
Shanghai will not only have recovered its economic eminence among China’s cities but will also be the world’s biggest capital
market. Before then Hong Kong needs another identity.

There are plenty of ways of electing the SAR’s Chief Executive that comply with the Basic Law but which do not entail Hong
Kong becoming “Taiwan Lite”. The youth of Pok Fu Lam, the rioters of Mong Kok, the Cantonese “localists”, have all to realize
that just as physics has the law of gravity, so politics has the gravity of law; and a harmonious society conducive to human
happiness has never happened anywhere without a stable, reliable and fairly enforced law.

There is a route to a new identity for Hong Kong that does not involve pipe dreams or holding on to a receding past. The world
population is continuing to grow and cities are starting to spread out into megalopolises of over 30 million inhabitants. Greater
Chongqing has over 38 million already. Hong Kong has the opportunity to channel its Cantonese pride into leading what may
become the biggest and most prosperous megalopolis on the planet if builds a trusting and cooperative set of relationships with
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macao; so that the Pearl Delta megalopolis of the mid-21st century is the most innovative,
most prosperous, most ecologically harmonious and most wisely governed of any megalopolis on the planet. Shenzhen is
already cited in the academic literature alongside Silicon Valley as a good example of an innovative ecosystem where
entrepreneurs, academics and public officials cooperate to create new value in goods, services and amenities.

Now think of an innovative ecosystem encompassing the entire Pearl River Delta with Hong Kong Island as its Manhattan
equivalent, Macao its Las Vegas, Zhuhai its French Riviera, Shenzhen its Silicon Valley and Guangzhou its Chicago. No other
region of the world could match it. It is a destiny waiting to be grasped.

The author is professor of accounting in the New England Business School at the University of New England in Armidale,
Australia.

--

Albert LIN
Op-Ed Editor
China Daily Hong Kong Edition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mobile: (852) 9773 3358
E-mail: albertlin@chinadailyhk.com
Tel: (852) 2518 5136
Fax: (852) 2552 6061
Website: www.chinadailyasia.com // www.chinadailyasia.com/opinion/
Address: Unit 1818, Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Praya Road, Aberdeen, HK