Some friends in Hong Kong seem to be obsessed with regarding Singapore as a competitor.
In fact, although they have experienced British colonial rule, these two economies are very different and play a different role.
For modern Hong Kong, the real problem is what role it is to China.
During the British colonial rule, especially after the Chinese Communist Party ruled China, Hong Kong acted as a trade window for China.
After the British colonial era, the role of Hong Kong began to change with China joined the WTO in 2001 and continued the reform and economic liberalization path began in 1978.
The manufacturing industry in Hong Kong was relocated to China, and the manufacturing industry began from 20%to 30%(until the 1980s), down to less than 10%.This means that from the semi -familiar employees to the middle supervisor and all employees of the manager, they have lost more stable manufacturing positions and have a huge employment gap.
At present, Hong Kong does not have the work of manufacturing. The manufacturing industry now accounts for less than 5%of its GDP, about 2%to 3%.
[Postscript: The latest data from the World Bank shows that Hong Kong's manufacturing industry accounts for 1 % in 2017.This decreased compared to the 30 % peak in 1970. At that time, Hong Kong was about to develop into one of the four small dragons in East Asia.]
Therefore, Hong Kong has become a service center in China.
However, everyone thinks about it where China's financial and commercial centers were taken over in Hong Kong in 1949 and Britain?
Shanghai is a key financial center in China, while Beijing and Guangzhou in the north are booming.
Hong Kong has never played such a role in China's long history. Until the British appeared, and the post -war China closed the door to conduct self -sufficiency and ultimate failure experiments.
Therefore, as China opens the portal, the real competitors in Hong Kong are in China: Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.
Since the implementation of economic liberalization in 1978, China's economic scale has reached about $ 1 trillion (S $ 1.36 trillion) around 2000, which is about six times that of Hong Kong GDP.
With the further integration of the WTO in China in 2001, China ’s GDP increased by more than 10 times by 2018.At the same time, Hong Kong's GDP has doubled.
Hong Kong's GDP is now equal to about 3 % of China's GDP.In other words, China's economic scale is more than 30 times that of Hong Kong.
Even before 1980, it was just a scarce fishing village or rural Shenzhen. It is now surpassing Hong Kong in terms of GDP and the density of top talents across China.That's right, Shenzhen is a special economic zone, but even before China joins the WTO, it has shown the potential of economic liberalization.
Therefore, the real problem is what role should Hong Kong be in China and what to play for the world.
The flow of attention to some funds and personnel to Singapore (and the flow of people and funds to the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain and other places, especially professional talents), are simply the focus.
Just as we can't choose our parents, Hong Kong and Singapore have no choice in geographical location.
Just as Singapore is firmly fixed in Geography and geographical politics in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong is also inseparable from China in its history and geographical geography.
The British use Hong Kong as China Trading Station and Singapore as Southeast Asian Fast Trade Station.
Singapore's additional role has always been the headquarters of the Far East Command of the United Kingdom. Until the Second World War broke the myth of British Navy.
Singapore found the path of survival after independence.
Hong Kong mainly relies on a small part of the service industry in China.
Since 10 years ago, some multinational companies have decided to relocate or settle in cities directly in China, such as Shanghai.
Especially for multinational companies that have large manufacturing factories in China, living conditions have been improved, and confidence has been strengthened, so that they consider that Chinese cities in China are regarded as direct replacement options for Hong Kong.
That's right, some Chinese residents also go to Hong Kong, or Hong Kong as the resident.It is attractive to some mainland Chinese people, because there are no restrictions on the number of children and children, but even if it is a fertility problem, mainland China is relaxing.
If China continues to relax restrictions and improve living conditions, what role does Hong Kong play in China and the world to China and the world?
In the past 22 years, Hong Kong's real value to China has been a demonstrator of the concept of one country, two systems, and a way to attract Taiwan's return.
However, if this proves that it is unreasonable, then Hong Kong's strategic value will be greatly reduced to China.
Is Hong Kong's Dubai in China, which allows Chinese residents to decompress in the past?Is Hong Kong a window for China, so that the outside world can observe and do business with China up close?Is Hong Kong another more mature economic zone, used to experiment with the democratic process with Chinese characteristics?
Hong Kong has never been a democratic society. Therefore, as a democratic test field, Hong Kong also needs to detect the path that he can move forward.However, the advantage of Hong Kong is that it never needs to build and maintain its own army, so it has more financial freedom, and its people are also exempt from performing military service obligations.
Singapore is a bit lucky -it conducted its own experiment after the war. Before joining the Malaysian Federation and independence, there were city council elections, autonomous governments (autonomous government except for national defense and foreign affairs).
Therefore, the people of Singapore and political and business leaders learn what they can do and do not work.
And survival (or more precisely the threat of extinction) is the biggest motivation to learn quickly without ideological influence.
Singapore's example may be used by Hong Kong in terms of political ways. The city council election allows the people to take care of their constituencies, and then implement autonomy in all places except national defense and foreign affairs.
The British hurriedly left the political structure of Hong Kong without thinking, which is not good for Hong Kong, but also not to the viable road to the democratic system with Hong Kong characteristics, let alone a democratic system with Chinese characteristics.
Therefore, what Hong Kong people can do for themselves are deeply staring at themselves, and think about what role they want to play in China and China.Only when they can play a role in China and China can Hong Kong find their own roles in the world.
At the same time, in view of the geographical economy, regional politics and technology will dominate the flow of trade and business in the next ten years, or even more, Singapore also needs to rethink its role in the region and the world.
Natural power can also devour us all -they do not respect any political ideas or intentions -and they are more powerful than the most powerful countries that can gather on the earth.
Therefore, you must take care of yourself, keep calm, think deeply, and take organizational and decisive actions to create a better, better, better, safer, safer, safer, and safer action for our people and the country, our families, and our descendantsworld.
(This article was published on October 26 on the Hejing Facebook page, the original text was written in English)
