Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 74 ›› Issue (12): 2455-2466.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201912003

• Regional Development Pattern and Space Governance • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Regional integration and interaction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

LIU Yi1,2,3, WANG Yun1,2,3, YANG Yu1,2,3, MA Li2,3   

  1. 1. Institute of Strategy Research for Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou 510070, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    3. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2019-11-07 Revised:2019-12-11 Online:2019-12-25 Published:2019-12-25
  • Supported by:
    Special Project of Institute of Strategy Research for Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area Construction(2019GDASYL-0202001)

Abstract:

The integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will inevitably encounter a series of frictions because of the cross-social system, cross-legal system and cross-administrative hierarchy. Research on the cooperation and conflict between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao is an important supplement to the integration study of the area. This paper reviews the process of integration development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 1997 to 2019 through the global news event database GDELT. The results show that: (1) the relationship between China's mainland and Hong Kong presents a "M" type fluctuation, and the conflict between them has been amplified by the news media compared with the mainland-Macao relationship. (2) The policy and public opinion between China's mainland and Macao are highly consistent, as the verbal cooperation between them is the leading factor of the interaction. (3) The interaction between China's mainland, Hong Kong and Macao has generally become closer, along with the increasing frequency of cooperations and conflicts. The importance of the mainland-Hong Kong relationship in the interactive relationship between Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao has been increasingly highlighted. (4) Material cooperation projects are still insufficient in the process of the regional integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and there is an urgent need for diversified cooperation. The economic and technological competitions and cooperations between Guangdong and Hong Kong are the main factors affecting the interactive relationship between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as the tensions in Hong Kong. In the future, the coordinated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should focus on not only the projection of regional policies on space, but also its projection on social public opinion and the news media. It is necessary to combine the integration of physical space and virtue/discourse space, and strengthen the interactions between "hard connection" and "soft connection".

Key words: the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, regional coordination, integration, GDELT, interaction, one country and two systems