Why Hongkongers need to visit the mainland with an open mind

There is a fundamental disconnect between China’s world-leading modern success and the perception held by many in Hong Kong, particularly young people
Making travel easier between the two places would help change this

Mike Rowse

Published: 4:30pm, 17 Dec 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

When I arrived in Hong Kong 50 years ago, most locals looked down on their mainland counterparts, referring to them dismissively as “country bumpkins”. Now the shoe is very much on the other foot, and social media users to the north are referring to us as the residents of a clapped-out international financial centre.

The pendulum really has swung, and as often happens in such cases, has overcorrected and gone too far. Nonetheless the negative terminology should serve as a useful wake-up call.

Looking back, I think the tipping point was probably the summer of 2003. As our economy struggled to emerge from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic, what came to our rescue was the sudden flood of mainland tourists. The people to whom we had once sent food parcels, now returned to save us with their cash from a burgeoning economy. The problem is that far too many Hongkongers, particularly the younger generation, have been slow to recognise the new reality.

That is one reason former chief executive Leung Chun-ying urges our young people to visit mainland China, learn more about the situation and explore opportunities there, particularly in the Greater Bay Area. It is presumably also part of the impetus behind the recent proposal to have a new museum setting out the country’s many achievements in the face of adversity.

I see nothing wrong with that idea in principle but surely, rather than disturb what is currently our most popular facility, the Science Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui, the obvious location for the new one should be in the West Kowloon Cultural District near the Palace Museum. Then we would create a node bringing the best of the past together with the best of the present and future.

There will be a lot to display in the new facility. China is now a world leader in many areas such as electric vehicles, solar energy and mobile phones. The country’s achievements in space and aeronautics are mind boggling in both scope and pace. Ten years ago, who would have guessed that we would have our own space station, have launched a rover to Mars, and landed a capsule on the far side of the moon?

From being stragglers, we are now among the leaders. The next field in which our country is set to shine will surely be aviation: last week China flew two home-grown passenger jets outside mainland air space for the first time, to Hong Kong. The US-European Union duopoly of civil aviation deserves to be broken up in the interests of greater competition.

To my mind, one of the greatest success stories of the modern era has been the development of the high-speed rail network, which I have used three times – to Beijing, Guilin and Guangzhou – and it has been impressive on each occasion. China has more than twice as much high-speed train track as the rest of the world.

But what impresses me clearly doesn’t awe everyone. There seems to be a fundamental disconnect here and the real challenge is how to break through.

The best cure for ignorance is knowledge. So how can we ensure everyone in Hong Kong gets exposed to the facts of life in modern China as quickly as possible?

Let’s start with ease of travel. Most Hongkongers need a home return permit to go there. The application process can be tortuous and take up a lot of time. Can this be made faster and easier?

Could consideration be given to delegating the job to our own Immigration Department (already authorised by Beijing to handle naturalisation cases) so that an identity card and home return permit can be issued in a single exercise upon reaching the relevant age. Could the cards even be combined one day?

To visit the mainland, most non-Chinese require a passport from their own country combined with a visa issued by the mainland authorities. In recent times, the visas have often been for single entry, though multiple entry ones are being issued again. For long-term Hong Kong residents, how about a single card – a sort of expatriate permit – covering at least the Greater Bay Area?

06:19

High hopes for China’s Greater Bay Area, but integrating 11 cities will pose challenges

There are also some practical disincentives which could be reduced or removed if an effort is made. I am thinking here of roaming charges and lack of unfettered access to the internet. There are also payment issues that might be simplified.

As I found out for myself the hard way, it is almost impossible to pay for most things on the mainland in cash. To buy a coffee or take a taxi, you will in practice need either Alipay or WeChat Pay on your phone. These can now be linked to a Hong Kong bank account rather than a mainland one, which is an improvement but there has to be scope for simplifying operational procedures.

As a friend frequently reminds me, though I have installed WeChat Pay on my phone, I have yet to successfully pay for a transaction there. Does anyone issue the equivalent of an Octopus card? If we want people to visit, we also want them to return cheerful, not with a bag of moans and grievances.

How about some mild push factors, without being too dictatorial and overbearing? Whatever schemes are afoot in terms of school visits, we need to do a lot more of them. No secondary student should be allowed to apply to a Hong Kong university without having visited a mainland one. I recommend the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Guangzhou campus in Nansha. Go by high-speed train. It might change your mind.

Enough talking the talk, it’s time to walk the walk.

Mike Rowse is an independent commentator