Rezoning at the threshold of two systems: regional statecraft and regulatory arbitrage in China’s Great Bay Area

Keywords: Greater Bay Area, regional statecraft, special economic zones, party-state capitlalism
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 30

Abstract

Promulgated in 2019, the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) promised to “break new ground” with step-changes in both the degree and intensity of economic, regulatory, and infrastructural integration across nine mainland cities and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. The latest in a succession of cross-border strategies for the Pearl River Delta region, the GBA plan might have been destined for a similar kind of liminal status, had it not been for a tumultuous period of protest politics in Hong Kong, the imposition of a new national security law, the COVID pandemic, and a prolonged trade war between China and the United States. These conditions have elevated the strategic and symbolic significance of this germinal scheme for megaregional integration, as China seeks to reconfigure its geopolitical-economic relations within an increasingly uncertain world system. The reigning principle of “one country, two systems” continues to receive official endorsement from all parties. Yet the new normal for this recombinant region seems to be diverging from its previous normal: Materializing the new emphasis on “coordination,” integration, and accelerated reform, three new “border projects” were announced in the Fall of 2021, each one abutting the two SARs, and each with their own configuration of embryonic rules, governance principles, and interjurisdictional arrangements. The paper assesses the implications of this new generation of zones for the region-building project of the GBA, for the dynamics of party-state urban entrepreneurialism in this fractured and contradictory, yet strategically important, region.