Beijing’s vision went well beyond that. Its aim was to merge Guangdong province, Hong Kong, and Macao into a giant economic powerhouse to be known as the Greater Bay Area. When the idea was inaugurated in 2017, the area had a combined population of 71 million and a GDP of $1.6 trillion.40 That made it the twelfth largest economy in the world, on a par with South Korea. Accounting for 37 percent of China’s exports, the Greater Bay Area had spectacular future prospects. Memories of Hong Kong’s autonomy would drown in the money to be made in Asia’s Silicon Valley.
