China’s Pearl River Delta outpaces Tokyo, San Francisco bay areas

Carrying mostly Tsinoy tourists and some Philippine-based journalists, the chartered bus has traversed about 17 kilometers of the newly opened sea bridge across the foggy Pearl River estuary. And then the mist parted to reveal the diamond-shaped island in the middle of the water ahead.

Named as West Artificial Island, it is shaped like the body of a kite, with the bridge representing its lengthy tail. The island serves as the mouth of a 6.8-kilometer undersea tunnel, the other end of which emerges onto Shenzhen.

This is the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, tagged at more than $6 billion and opened to traffic last June 30.

This tollway connects two eponymous cities of China’s Guangdong province, and complements the similar bridge-tunnel complex that opened in 2018—the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge—which is more than twice as long and two and a half times as costly.

These two high-profile projects are but hints of the economic might of an area that represents one-ninth of China’s $17.8-trillion national economy in 2023 and dubbed as the workshop or factory of the world.

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Indeed, just about two hours of flight time across and away from the rising tensions in the South China Sea, particularly the portion that is called West Philippine Sea, there is a parallel and less abrasive buzz.

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It is the rumbling of the economic juggernaut that is the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), which is considered a counterpart or rival not only to America’s Silicon Valley on the other side of the Pacific but also to the nearer Tokyo-Yokohama Metropolitan Area.

Accounting for about 11 percent of the world’s second-largest economy after the United States means the economic output of the GBA is comparable to that of Australia or South Korea—each valued at about $1.7 trillion, according to the World Bank.

In a commentary, DBS Bank notes that the GBA rang up $2 trillion in 2023. It is “one of the top bay areas in the world,” having surpassed the Tokyo Bay Area ($1.8 trillion) and much more so the San Francisco Bay Area ($1.3 trillion).

Just as the technology and innovation enclave of Silicon Valley in Northern California made waves in the past several decades, the GBA has been and is continuing to shape the world as we know it today.

DBS cites six factors that underpin the GBA—its strategic infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing, being a trade and e-commerce center, a financial center, robust private consumption and resilient property market.

‘9 plus 2’

The tourist bus made the crossing in late August, carrying a test group that sampled a Guangdong route, which ran through five of the nine cities of Guangdong that comprise the GBA along with the two special autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

The swing-around covered Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai.

The sortie was organized by Shenzhen Airlines and Caloocan City-based New Goldmines Tours and Travels, which also offers other destinations across China.

When asked why a Filipino tourist would choose New Goldmines’ Shenzhen package—over, say, Shanghai or Beijing or other more known destinations—proprietor Ruben Co says it is not about choosing one over another.

“If you want to immerse yourself in 3,000 years of Chinese history, go to Xian (City in Shanxi province). If you want history from the past 500 years, go to Beijing; 200 years, go to Shanghai; for the past century, go to Guangdong,” says Co.

Indeed, how can any noodle dish-loving Filipino not want to see the storied city at the apex of the Pearl River Delta—Guangzhou, also known as Canton?

The skyline of this capital city of Guangdong is undeniably modern, overlaying its past as a peripheral region far removed from the economic and political centers of the imperial dynasties.

The most popular sight on the horizon is the Canton Tower, which stands at a bank of the Pearl River itself. Nicknamed “Small Waist” due to its twisting shape, the 604-meter-tall broadcasting structure is second only to Japan’s Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest tower.

But there are other notable buildings; Guangzhou is home to four of the world’s 100 tallest skyscrapers, according to the United States-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

These include the Guangzhou CTF Financial Centre (eighth-tallest, at 530 meters, with 111 floors), Guangzhou International Finance Centre (27th, 439 m, 101 floors), CITIC Plaza (44th, 390 m, 80 floors) and The Pinnacle (83rd, 350 m, 60 floors).

Shenzhen beats this with a dozen of such buildings—the most in any one city—including the Ping An Finance Centre, fifth tallest in the world at 599 m and with 115 floors. Little wonder, considering that the city is home to one of China’s three stock exchanges, adding to those in Beijing and Shanghai.

Shenzhen’s shortest entry in the list is the One Shenzhen Bay Tower 7, 94th at 341 meters and with 71 floors.

Land of the crane

Still, there are more that are being built, showing that the GBA’s brisk growth is still underway. Looking around as the bus breezes along the intercity tollways, one cannot miss the continuing proliferation of construction cranes. Thus, the now old yet persisting pun that the “crane” is China’s national animal (apologies to the giant panda).

Indeed, there is a forest of high-rise residential buildings across the GBA, the population of which is approaching 90 million or about four-fifths of the Philippines’.

Robin Tan, one of the Tsinoys in the group, could not reconcile what is now a metropolis compared to the Shenzhen that he saw in the 1980s.

Tan had the opportunity to cross over the border from adjacent Hong Kong—then still under the British—when Shenzhen was newly designated as one of China’s first special economic zones.

He was visiting with a former classmate, a resident of Hong Kong who went to high school in the Philippines.

It was a time of openness and reforms when, with Deng Xiaoping at the helm, China was “hiding capabilities and biding time.”

“All I saw was a fishing village, surrounded by farmlands,” Tan says. “Back then, Shenzhen locals highly prized items that were available only in Hong Kong, like some home appliances.”

Now, Shenzhen and the GBA churn out everything and anything that one might need or simply want. In fact, Guangzhou hosts the twice-yearly Canton Fair, aka the China Import and Export Fair.

China’s tourism industry has latched on to a line of a poem that Mao Zedong wrote in the 1930s, during a period of retreat amid escalating civil war, which avers that one who failed to reach the Great Wall is “not a true man” or “not a true hero.”

Throughout the past century, travelers have embraced America and marveled at the wonders of Japan, despite tribulations inflicted by these nations. Hence, it seems a no-brainer that we should also know more about the latest big player in the neighborhood.

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