In Shenzhen, economists and policymakers gathered ahead of November's APEC summit to ask a question that has shadowed every era of globalization: how do regions hold together when the larger world pulls apart. The Greater Bay Area — spanning Shenzhen's manufacturing ingenuity and Hong Kong's financial depth — was placed at the center of this inquiry, not merely as a local success story but as a proposed model for Asia-Pacific integration at a moment when trade fragmentation, debt pressures, and technological disruption are redrawing the map of economic power. The forum's ambitions pointed towa