Hong Kong set up bars for charter cities. But it’s not a blueprint that can be transported

09/13/2020 World


Under property developer Evan Connie’s original plans, the charter city “NextPolice” would be built between Ireland’s two largest cities and filled with half a million Hong Kongers seeking refuge in their hometown under political pressure.

But while charter cities are fairly common, international charter cities are another matter. The idea, proposed in the late 2000s, was that new cities could be established in developing countries and governed by outside governments or organizations, a completely different economic and social model for the rest of the country, as a way of supercharged development.

If “NextPolis” moves forward, it will be the first bid for the establishment of an international charter city – in almost a decade – with some tweaks, and the first to move beyond the planning phase.

Previous efforts were derailed by corruption and instability, while the model was condemned by some as neoclonial and ineffective.

Co, founder of Victoria Harbor Group (VHG), an international charter city investment company, says his plans for a “new Hong Kong” in Ireland are still on track, despite no clear progress with the Irish authorities.

What is Charter City?

International charter cities were first conceived in the late 2000s by economist Paul Romer.

Hong Kong itself was the original inspiration for many international charter city advocates, including Romer, who saw it as proof of concept: a city that worked for decades with the British structure in Asia, and then China had a unique political and economic system. .

International charter cities work like this: a new city is built in a sovereign country, but it is free to experiment with its own political and economic system – usually with lower taxes and fewer rules. A foreign country can also act as a city administrator – the idea that the city’s spillover effect will boost the economies of the developing-world country built under it.

Romer, in his 2009 Ted Talk, cited the example of the creation of a “special administrative zone” in Guantanamo Bay, on the southeastern part of Cuba, to be administered by Canada, and to “connect the modern economy and the modern world” with Cuba. . It is similar to how China created a special economic zone in Shenzhen to connect the country with the capitalist world to experiment without a massive change in the national economic system and to give the urban pocket more economic freedom.

Hong Kong, or Ireland? (It's Ireland.)
But Romer’s two attempts to establish international charter cities in Madagascar and Honduras, both ultimately failed.
The first project collapsed when Romer’s supporter, Mark Ravalomanna, the president of Madagascar, was ousted during a coup in 2009. He then turned his attention to Honduras, which brought President Porfirio Lobo to power. The project is concerned about corruption and eventually Romer resigned from the Transparency Commission, which was supposed to oversee it, saying it had been blocked from key information.
For many of Dell’s critics of the Charter City model, Dale pointed to one problem, given the instability and corruption in developing countries: you can’t fix countries by parachuting into some neoliberal economists with grand ideas. Others also argued that the idea itself is neoclassical.
Jason Hiskel, an economic ethnographer and author of “Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions”, said that in practice the closest model of charter cities is the free trade sector, which “has been relentlessly condemned in the literature on economics. That they do virtually nothing to improve real development outcomes. “

“Wages are lower than in the national sector, labor standards are poor (and) environmental regulations do not exist,” he said. “This makes it ideal for examples of accumulation by foreign capital, but not good for national development.”

New Hong Kong?

Koe, founder of NextPolice, told CNN he had been working on the idea for an Irish-Hong Kong “charter city” since last year, when anti-government unrest swept Hong Kong, and many were considering leaving. But while he is allegedly pushing his plan, the Irish government is less than eager.

In a statement, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said that “since the initial approach in December 2019, the department has had limited contact with Co”, and that it had taken “no further action” on the matter.

While the talk was initially happy, Koe broke off communications in July. The same month, several students suspected of “scattering” were arrested under a new security law imposed on the city by Beijing. Whose plan was planned by many as a possible compromise for those who are wary of the law.

And if anything, it’s a radically reduced version of the original vision. According to a version of the plan published on the Times London f London, it would have proposed a settlement of the original half a million people. Its latest plan is for just 15,000 cities, the smallest of some of Hong Kong’s dwellings. According to the Times, officials initially worried him about acquiring the amount of land needed for a city of the size suggested by Koe.

Co is not the only charter city proponent to see Hong Kong as a possible solution to the current political crisis. But while these proposals allow Romer’s ideas, they will be, in practice, very different beasts: apparently Ireland is not a developing country, or the government of Hong Kong is unlikely to be involved in helping build a new settlement.

Hong Kong, however, is a striking example of a charter city prop of the place that exists in the country, but many feel that the model could be relocated to other continents, turning to China for Ireland or the UK to enjoy the same economic success. That Hong Kong has been in the past decades.

Original charter city

“Let’s build Hong Kong here in the UK,” wrote Sam Baumen, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law and Economics, in a recent essay.

But charter city proprietors often prefer cherries to draw attention to this as to the characteristics of the city and the reasons for its growth, while others will ignore less tasty issues. What Bowman and others are also missing is that the accidents of history have made Hong Kong what it is today, and the resulting complex economic structure will be difficult to replicate.

Hong Kong was flooded with colonial rule. The British ruled a small part of Chinese territory until 1997, giving them access to expertise in establishing and governing the legal scaffolding.

And while the liberal economist Milton Friedman called Hong Kong under the British “almost a laboratory experiment on what happens when the proper work of government is limited enough and people are free for their own purposes,” the reality is not so simple.

But Friedman commented that in the 1980s, when he made a documentary on the city, Hong Kong was progressing as a manufacturing center, thanks to staff members as part of the sweatshop by Chinese immigrants. The city is also increasingly emerging as a tax haven and financial hub, connected to the global financial system and isolated enough to avoid regulation.

And for all the talk of Hong Kong’s pre-independence, its Chinese inhabitants did not have much political representation until the end of the 20th century.

“It’s very easy to get free market freedom if you don’t have democracy,” said Sam Whiterell, an expert on urban history at York University.
The legacy of that system can be seen today in Hong Kong, one of the most unequal societies on earth, with low wages and low rents forcing many people to live in small apartments or so-called “cage houses” with a small share. , Many divided space with dozens of others. The city is also home to a class of low-wage migrant workers, many of whom are forced to live with their employers and earn less than the $ .80 per hour minimum wage.

“Western thinkers have always framed Hong Kong as an economically liberal city with good liberal values,” said John Moke, an academic at the University of California, Berkeley, who studied Hong Kong.

He said, “We Hong Kong are well aware that the gap between rich and poor is very wide.”

Supply and demand

Hong Kong may have little to do with the idea of ​​an international charter city, while creating a “new Hong Kong” for immigrants to another country is a clear departure from the original concept.

Instead of creating a charter city within a developing country, rather than meeting the existing population in need of work and opportunities, the “new Hong Kong” model relies on Ireland or another government, if not thousands, ready to accept migration, depending on whether the proposed city will bring economic benefits.

To sell the idea, many proponents have framed the people of Hong Kong as economic dynamos, often wandering into an ethnically connected region of “hardworking Asian people”.

Writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hennan, a former Conservative politician and leading Brexit, called for a self-governing Hong Kong in Britain, saying that migrants would “bring their own wealth to these places and, once they arrive, they would generate economic activity.” Were in their homeland. “
Elsewhere, Bloomberg’s editorial board and Australian Australian government ministers have also talked about the potential benefits of migrants from Hong Kong.

However, Chinese-American scientist Yangyang Cheng said such “glossy sentences are not appreciated. They are inhumane.”

He wrote that the strong rhetoric of the western countries goes beyond humanitarian theory to emphasize economic interests. “They portray a population where Hong Kong’s poor and disadvantaged are never part of the picture, where the value of life is determined by its productivity.”

Wealthy, highly educated migrant countries can be a boon for the countries they go to, these comments ignore the fact that a large portion of Hong Kong’s population is suffering from the wealth gap – and ignore the reality that the new city can’t provide the same. Economic opportunity as their home.

“Unlike immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border or refugees from across the Mediterranean, Western legislators see the Asian city as their political theater,” Cheng wrote, referring to the Hong Kong Congress as the “right” type of immigrant. Claims, while racist and xenophobic policies are sitting at home. “

Neither is it clear that many Hong Kongers were moving to the Northeast Earl, ND, or staying in a populated part of the UK, as the Charter City proposal calls for them to come.

Despite promises to somehow recreate the Hong Kong system in Ireland or the UK, individual relationships anywhere are far more profound than “physical buildings equality,” economic models or tax regimes, said Weatherrell, an academic at the University of York. .

That said, Ireland is not Hong Kong, it’s a different climate, it’s a different world. “(Even if you can) rebuilding Hong Kong’s skyline in Ireland, it won’t be the same.”

According to Mock, who along with colleagues discovered the Hong Kongers to go abroad, Taiwan’s self-governing island was the first choice of heavy choice, drawing attention to the shared culture and history, and the island’s proximity to Hong Kong.

The 28-year-old lawyer, who is planning to emigrate, told CNN that he too was leaning towards Taiwan. He liked the idea of ​​creating a new Hong Kong, but said he “never thought seriously” about Ireland.

“I’ve been there once every two weeks. It’s a beautiful place, but I don’t know much about it,” he said anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject. “A lot of Hong Kong people already live in Canada, the US or Taiwan and there are already mini communities of Hong Kong people. I’m not sure if this is the case in Ireland as well.”

CNN No. Jadin Shame contributed to the report.

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