Abstract:One of the peculiar features of Hong Kong being a global city is that it has a border. Because of the existence of such a border,it encounters many problems that other global cities would not need to deal with. Indeed,the border issue is not a question that has attracted much attention in the literature on global city. This is partly due to the fact that most global cities operate within a national framework and thus they are relatively free from the constraints imposed by an administrative border of the city. It is also partly due to the fact that the literature on global city carries a hyper-globalist assumption,seeing most of the global cities as unrestrained entities operating in the context of a borderless world. However,in reality,the existence of an administrative boundary does matter. Not only does it regulate the flow of various kinds of activity within and across the border,it also shapes the perspectives and actions of the concerned agents. The so-called region-state envisaged by Kenichi Ohmae has not been realized. To comprehend why this is so is important to our understanding of the current situation of Hong Kong. This paper is an attempt to look at Hong Kong’s integration with South China in the past 35 years. Of course,challenges posed to post-1997 Hong Kong are many and they cannot be reduced to one single source of contradiction. Yet,that said,the fact that Hong Kong is not particularly successful in remaking its spatial configuration is one of the many reasons for her economic and social impasse after the return to China. This paper tries to look at the issue of regional integration,hoping that this will help reflect upon its impacts on Hong Kong.
收起