Cross-boundary Integration of the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong: An Emerging Global City-region in China

The ongoing complementary processes of globalization and regionalization have brought about the emergence of global city-regions and the proliferation of cross-border regions in various parts of the world since the 1990s (Hettne 1999, Scott et al. 2001, Perkmann and Sum 2002). Border regions have been the focus of increasing attention from the late 1980s onwards (Geenhuizen and Ratti 2001). However, existing analysis of cross-border regions has tended to concentrate in North America, Western Europe and recent Southeast Asia (Simmonds and Hack 2000, Perkmann and Sum 2002). Most analysis has been at either supranational or national level, and has focused on economic integration through regional institutions such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) (Scott 1999). Relatively little has been written on the nature and process of cross-border regions in developing countries at sub-national levels particularly in transitional socialist China, with only a few exceptions on the cases of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (e.g. So et al. 2001, Sasuga 2002, Sum 2002).