Greater Bay Area positioned as Asia-Pacific hub as China prepares APEC leadership

Shenzhen hosted the eighth gathering of the Greater Bay Area Chief Economists Forum on July 24, drawing together regional experts and international scholars to chart a course for Asia-Pacific economic integration. The timing was deliberate: China will chair the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this November, with the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting scheduled to take place in Shenzhen itself. The forum's organizers—a consortium of academic institutions including the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Shenzhen campus and its business school—had assembled the gathering to explore five interconnected domains: trade and development across the Asia-Pacific, digital technology, green energy, regional markets, and the particular role of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in all of this.

Andrew Sheng, a financial regulation advisor and former board member of Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, opened the proceedings with a diagnosis of the world as it is reshaping itself. He identified four currents driving a shift toward multipolarity: the transformation of energy and power structures, the fragmentation of global trade, the weaponization of finance along geopolitical lines, and the disruption wrought by artificial intelligence. Sheng warned that the three major economic blocs—China, the United States, and Europe—each carry vulnerabilities: debt crises loom, asset bubbles inflate. His prescription was direct: countries must build resilience and construct frameworks for cooperation that can absorb these systemic shocks.

Wang Chunxin, deputy head of Hong Kong's Chief Executive's Policy Unit, reframed the Greater Bay Area as China's most globally integrated urban cluster and outlined four missions for it in the coming period. The first is to pioneer further reform and opening. The second is to become a technological innovation hub for the entire Asia-Pacific region. The third involves deepening connectivity within the region and building bridges for cooperation. The fourth leverages Hong Kong's distinctive position—its legal systems, its financial infrastructure, its international networks—to support China's broader development agenda.

The numbers that underpin this ambition are substantial. China's trade with other APEC economies totaled $3.7 trillion in the previous year. More tellingly, China has become the largest trading partner for thirteen of the APEC member economies. Yet Wang argued that the real opportunity lies in institutional architecture. He pointed to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, or FTAAP, as the mechanism through which greater openness could be achieved. Such an agreement would encompass forty percent of the world's population and generate sixty percent of global GDP—a scale that could reshape how regional financial and trade disputes are resolved. Wang cited existing high-standard trade frameworks, particularly the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, as models. These agreements have moved beyond simple tariff reduction to address domestic competition policy, data flows, and digital commerce.

Li Qile, who manages HSBC's Greater Bay Area operations, spoke to the practical mechanics of how this integration might work. The Bay Area itself possesses three distinct strengths: resilience, dynamism, and innovation capacity. Shenzhen functions as a technology and manufacturing powerhouse. Hong Kong operates as a mature financial services center with deep international connections. The proximity between them creates an opportunity for Chinese companies to structure their operations strategically: headquarters and research facilities in Shenzhen, financial operations and capital-raising platforms in Hong Kong. This arrangement allows firms to navigate international compliance requirements—particularly around cross-border data and finance—more effectively than they could operating from a single location.

Li traced the evolution of Chinese companies' global expansion through three distinct phases. The earliest involved straightforward exports and overseas sales. The second phase saw the construction of factories abroad, mergers and acquisitions of foreign assets. The current phase involves the deployment of technologies, research capabilities, and talent on a global scale. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes ASEAN, Northeast Asia, and extends to Oceania, provides the connective tissue for this expansion, linking markets across the region and addressing gaps in infrastructure and regulatory alignment.

What emerged from the forum was a portrait of the Greater Bay Area not as a regional experiment but as a prototype for how China intends to position itself within a fragmenting world economy. The APEC meeting in November will test whether the vision articulated in Shenzhen can translate into binding agreements and institutional change.