London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

Hong Kong cannot afford to say ‘I don’t mind’ to being overtaken by Shenzhen

Hong Kong cannot afford to say ‘I don’t mind’ to being overtaken by Shenzhen

Carrie Lam’s indifference, even if diplomatic, to Shenzhen surpassing Hong Kong economically goes down badly in proud city.

“We should build several Hong Kongs on the mainland,” the late Deng Xiaoping once said.

That was when China’s paramount leader and architect of the country’s opening up visited Shenzhen, then a backward fishing village in the early 1980s, and looked across the border at a prosperous Hong Kong under British rule.

Shenzhen and three other cities had been designated as China’s first batch of special economic zones by then, but few, including Deng himself, knew how to go about it.

Deng’s message to Shenzhen was that he had no money to offer, only special policies which the city would have to make the most of and forge its own path with blood, sweat and tears.

The rest is history.

Four decades later, Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Shenzhen last week to celebrate its 40th birthday as a special economic zone, and there was no mention of building “more Hong Kongs”.

Instead, Xi called for “another miracle” from Shenzhen by outlining six new missions for its next stage of development, empowering it to be an “important engine” for the Greater Bay Area and to come up with new experiences that could be “replicated” in other parts of the country.

From first copying Hong Kong to now promoting the Shenzhen model, is it a historical inevitability, a change of mind by Beijing leadership, or a combination of both?


Has Hong Kong done enough to take advantage of the unique economic opportunities presented by ‘one country, two systems’?


There is no standard answer when it comes to reading Beijing’s mind, but what adds to the bigger question is a particular comment by Carrie Lam
Cheng Yuet-ngor, Hong Kong’s chief executive, while attending the celebrations in Shenzhen.

“I don’t mind,” she said when she was interviewed by a local broadcaster and asked about her own city, despite all its advantages under the “one country, two systems” policy, being overtaken by its mainland neighbour.

She added that the economic scale and population of Shenzhen were much bigger than Hong Kong’s by now, and also blamed the many political challenges her administration was facing that made her job difficult.


Deng Xiaoping once said the mainland should build ‘many Hong Kongs’, sentiment not repeated publicly by today’s leadership.


Whether it was an attempt at diplomacy or a slip of the tongue, Lam upset both the pro-establishment and opposition camps back home, and quite a few academics as well, who argued that Hongkongers actually do mind seeing their hometown, once the shining “Pearl of the Orient”, overshadowed by its once poor neighbour.

Whether one does or does not mind, Shenzhen’s economic clout speaks volumes of its transformation by having learned much from Hong Kong, which is no longer the role model that it used to be.

What Deng had in mind was to learn from the merits of the capitalist system practised in Hong Kong to benefit mainland China’s economic opening up, rather than political reform. Nothing could undermine Communist Party rule, a stance that Xi is doubling down on now.

Xi’s emphasis on replicating Shenzhen instead of Hong Kong reflects the reality, pragmatically speaking, that the one country, two systems formula is impossible for other mainland cities to copy.

But if all roads lead to Rome regardless of different approaches, with “Rome” meaning economic success, Beijing’s attempt to showcase the creation of economic miracles under its socialist system with Chinese characteristics is obvious enough.

So politically, it has never been Beijing’s intention to fully copy Hong Kong’s capitalist system, especially with Western democracy characteristics, whatever illusions the West may have had about it.

Economically, what has been truly unfortunate for Hong Kong is its failure to make the most of the unique and competitive edge offered by the “two systems”, which might have allowed it to bargain for more politically within the red line of “one country”.

Hong Kong cannot afford not to mind being surpassed by Shenzhen. Instead, it needs to forge its own way out – with blood, sweat and tears if necessary.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
×