Premier Li Qiang called on Hong Kong to “deepen international exchanges and cooperation” in his Government Work Report. This is a mission that the central government has all along urged Hong Kong to fulfill under the “one country, two systems” framework as it is crucial to national development. To ensure the completion of the mission, Hong Kong must strengthen its all-round connections with the international community and enhance its international reputation and influence.
The country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) proposes to support Hong Kong in enhancing its status as an international financial, shipping, trade center and international aviation hub; as well as building an international innovation and technology center, an Asia-Pacific international legal and dispute resolution service center, a regional intellectual property trade center, and a center for cultural and artistic exchanges between China and foreign countries (the eight centers). The five-year plan also supports Hong Kong to strengthen its functions as a global offshore renminbi business hub, an international asset management center, and a risk management center. The purpose is to inject powerful impetus into Hong Kong’s economic development and industrial diversification, and help the city to deepen international exchanges and cooperation.
The central government has attached even greater importance to this mission of Hong Kong in recent years. In July, the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee decided to “improve the mechanism for Hong Kong and Macao to play a better role in the country’s opening-up to the outside world”. When President Xi Jinping met with Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in Beijing in December, he urged him and the special administrative region government to strengthen foreign exchanges and cooperation and continuously enhance international influence. In his speech on the 25th anniversary of Macao’s return to China last year, Xi called on Hong Kong and Macao to “broaden international connections and enhance global influence and attractiveness”.
The central government earnestly asked Hong Kong to “deepen international exchanges and cooperation”, a task closely related to changes in the international situation and China’s response strategy. Over the past decade, the United States and its allies have spared no effort to try and squeeze China’s global economic and political space. After Donald Trump’s return to power, his containment of China has intensified, and he could coerce and induce his allies to join forces in containing China. China has long been fully aware of Washington’s malicious intention and has already formulated long-term strategies to deal with it.
China has sought to weaken the US blockade through plans such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the continuous expansion of BRICS, and the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. In addition, China is actively promoting the causes of building a “community with a shared future for mankind”, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and other propositions, promoting a new round of economic globalization and building a new international order that is fair, reasonable, peaceful and mutually beneficial.
Since coming to power, Trump has exercised unilateralism, protectionism and bullying, predatorily advancing the US’ narrow interests around the world, trampling international rules, making enemies everywhere, and spreading chaos worldwide. US allies’ trust and dependence on Washington are plummeting, and they are seeking to increase cooperation with China. Although the international situation is turbulent, it nevertheless gives China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, a rare opportunity to open a broader global space for collaboration and exchanges.
Accordingly, the Government Work Report emphasized the need to “expand the space for international cooperation while expanding opening-up”, proposing several measures to deepen China’s opening-up.
The first thing is to expand high-level opening-up to the outside world and actively stabilize foreign trade and investment. The report emphasizes that “no matter how the external environment changes, we must always remain unwavering in opening-up to the outside world, steadily expand institutional opening-up, orderly expand independent and unilateral opening-up and use opening-up to promote reform and development”. The priorities in this regard include supporting companies in stabilizing orders and expanding overseas markets; strengthening support for companies to participate in and hold exhibitions abroad; supporting places with suitable conditions to develop new types of offshore trade; and promoting intelligent customs construction and cooperation to improve the level of customs clearance facilitation.
The second is to vigorously encourage foreign investment, including promoting comprehensive pilot demonstrations to expand the opening-up of the service sector, promoting orderly opening-up in areas such as the internet and culture; expanding pilot opening-up in areas such as telecommunications, medical care, and education; encouraging foreign investors to expand reinvestment, and bolstering participation in upstream and downstream support and collaboration in industrial chains; ensuring that foreign-invested enterprises receive national treatment in terms of factor acquisition, qualification recognition, standard setting, and government procurement; strengthening service guarantees for foreign-invested enterprises and accelerating the implementation of landmark projects; continuing to build the “Invest in China” brand; and continuing to create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, based on the rule-of-law, and internationalized, so that foreign-invested enterprises can get better development opportunities.
The third is to promote high-quality joint construction of the BRI to go deeper and be more practical, including coordinating the construction of significant landmark projects and “small and beautiful” livelihood projects, creating several exemplary cooperation results, and reinforcing the international community’s confidence in and support for the BRI.
The fourth is to deepen multilateral, bilateral and regional economic cooperation, including promoting the signing of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 upgraded agreement and actively promoting the process of joining the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. China will firmly safeguard the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core, expand the convergence of interests with other countries, and promote common development.
The fifth is to attract foreign talent, thereby comprehensively improving the quality of the talent pool. Measures include improving overseas talent support and guaranteeing mechanisms, and optimizing services for foreign talent.
Under the “one country, two systems” principle, Hong Kong is the most open of the country’s many large cities. The central government hopes that Hong Kong can wholeheartedly support and cooperate with the country’s deepening opening-up process. For this reason, Hong Kong should make good use of its extensive international connections, its systems that align with international standards, and its rich pool of international talent to open up a broader space for international economic cooperation for itself and the country and to enable the country to break through the US blockade. This is an essential task entrusted to Hong Kong by the central government in the new stage of “one country, two systems”. It is also an opportunity for Hong Kong to demonstrate its unique value and contribution to the country. Hong Kong must consolidate and optimize “the eight centers”. Hong Kong can play an active role in attracting foreign investment to the mainland, assisting mainland enterprises to develop overseas, internationalizing renminbi, building the BRI, promoting the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to the world, constructing an international talent base, creating an international higher education hub, setting up an international legal mediation center, telling the country’s and Hong Kong’s true stories to the outside world, promoting “heart-to-heart communication” between China and other countries, enhancing the country’s soft power and voice in the international arena, promoting economic globalization, and building a new international economic order.
In the past, Hong Kong has always had close relations with the West, but it is relatively unfamiliar with the non-Western world and lacks close ties with it. Considering that Western countries will remain crucial to Hong Kong and the country economically in the foreseeable future, Hong Kong must do its utmost to maintain its economic and trade relations with Western countries. However, since the US is determined to suppress both China and the HKSAR at the same time, no longer treats Hong Kong as a separate customs territory, and continues to impose various “groundless” sanctions on individuals and entities in Hong Kong, it is tough to promote cooperation between Hong Kong and the US at the official level. However, as President Xi counseled, “China-US relations are based on the people”. Therefore, Hong Kong’s NGOs and elites, such as enterprises, universities, think tanks, religious groups, public welfare and charitable organizations, and Hong Kong people with international influence, can play a more significant role than the HKSAR government in promoting nongovernmental exchanges and “heart-to-heart connections” between the people of Hong Kong and the US. As the US retreats from its allies, Hong Kong can play a “matchmaking” role in expanding the Chinese mainland’s relations with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea.
More importantly, Hong Kong must make great efforts to strengthen and deepen its ties with non-Western countries and regions in the future, among which Southeast Asian countries and Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are critical. Hong Kong residents have close ties with overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and can play a unique role in connecting China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Hong Kong needs to strive to become a hub for countries participating in the BRI in the fields of finance, trade, shipping, professional services, wealth management, setting up of headquarters, cross-border supply chain management, legal dispute mediation, information, operations planning, higher education, conferences and exhibitions, sports, tourism, art, and culture.
To deepen international exchanges and cooperation, all sectors of Hong Kong must fully understand the strategic importance of this task for the country and themselves, and consolidate and create relevant systems, laws, opportunities, facilities, and conditions for this purpose. To this end, Hong Kong must strengthen its communication and transportation links with overseas countries, enhance economic, financial, and cultural exchanges, hold more international trade conferences and exhibitions, and, with the support of the central government, allow more international organizations and groups such as the BRI, BRICS, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, RCEP, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, and other economic and trade organizations as well as international organizations and NGOs in different fields to hold meetings and conduct business in Hong Kong. The city can also become a platform to promote exchanges between China and other countries, allowing talent and elites from the mainland and other jurisdictions to interact in Hong Kong and promote mutual understanding and trust. For example, universities and think tanks can hold more international exchange seminars and invite those who are influential overseas to attend. To better accomplish its tasks, Hong Kong must train and introduce professionals who can promote Hong Kong’s integration with the international community, especially the non-Western world. It must also provide support and cooperation regarding laws and regulations, policies and measures, living conditions, and facilities for people of different nationalities, religions, and cultures to enhance Hong Kong society’s diversity and inclusiveness. Hong Kong can also use its understanding of and connections with Western society to correct Westerners’ one-sided and erroneous understanding of China and the HKSAR; as a place where China and the West meet, Hong Kong should be able to play a specific role in showcasing China’s excellent traditional culture. From another perspective, institutions and individuals on the mainland can also make better and more use of Hong Kong as a platform and leverage its international connections to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with overseas countries.
In addition to the efforts of the central government and the HKSAR government, the participation of Hong Kong’s NGOs is indispensable. The main reason is that under suppression from the US and its allies, the HKSAR government will encounter more difficulties and obstacles in promoting foreign exchanges and cooperation. The role that NGOs can play is thus more critical. Many NGOs in Hong Kong have extensive connections with overseas counterparts, and some Hong Kong elites are leaders of international organizations or are internationally renowned figures. Business organizations, professional organizations, educational institutions, cultural institutions, public welfare and charitable organizations, and many other NGOs can all play a role in strengthening and deepening international connections. For example, they can carry out public diplomacy, public welfare, charity, medical and health, and overseas education and training to increase the country’s soft power. To this end, the central and SAR governments need to strengthen the enthusiasm of NGOs and elites to promote Hong Kong’s role as a bridge connecting the country and the world, and provide appropriate support and encouragement at the proper time.
In short, as long as the HKSAR government and all sectors of society understand and value Hong Kong’s strategic significance in deepening international exchanges and cooperation, actively engage in this task, and work shoulder to shoulder with the country and the central government in carrying out this work, not only will the country and Hong Kong benefit, but the practice of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong will also acquire richer connotations and significance.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
