Mainland's new phase, HK's new opportunities

Fourth, banks and SOEs are financially independent from each other. Chinese banks are among the most profitable banks in the world. The credit market is also highly competitive. And banks' ownership has long been well diversified. Against such a background, tunneling interests to SOEs is impossible, even for banks with a big State ownership.

Fifth, the strong competitiveness of Chinese products is not due to lack of labor protection. China's Constitution and other laws provide strong protection for people's interest, allowing employees to participate in corporate management and labor union activities. In the past 10 years, migrant workers saw their income doubled.

We don't think strikes and demonstrations are good ways to solve labor disputes. Through consultation and oversight by multiple parties, win-win results can be achieved for both employees and employers.

As China enters the new development stage, takes on new development concepts and explores a new development paradigm, Hong Kong will regain its vitality and enjoy more opportunities.

Looking back toward the past 40 years, Hong Kong has played a pivotal role in every stage of China's development. Hong Kong is not only China's Hong Kong, but also Asia's Hong Kong and the world's Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is vital to China's new development pattern of dual circulation. Connecting China's domestic and international circulations, Hong Kong plays a prominent role in China's two-way flow of trade, investment, finance, and legal, tourism and cultural activities. So it is necessary for Hong Kong to further strengthen the cooperation and collaboration with the mainland.

Hong Kong can play an important role in developing the Greater Bay Area, which will become a model in our modernization drive. The Greater Bay Area offers opportunities for deepening the economic, trade and financial cooperation in the region, in the country, and in the world.

Hong Kong can contribute to the development of global innovation centers of science and technology. The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) proposes to support the Greater Bay Area, along with Beijing and Shanghai, to build national science centers and regional innovation hubs. Hong Kong and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province can support and benefit each other in such areas as digital economy, biomedicine and artificial intelligence.

Hong Kong is significant in growing offshore renminbi business. As the world's largest renminbi offshore market, Hong Kong can engage in more renminbi businesses at a larger scale. It can also attract more global clients, pool a larger volume of renminbi funds, better participate in China's opening-up, and steadily promote renminbi internationalization.

As an international financial center, Hong Kong is embracing the opportunities of the new century.

"Reform and opening-up" and "one country, two systems" are China's basic national policies. They will remain unchanged. The National Security Law put an end to the violence and turmoil that were called "a beautiful sight to behold "by some Western politicians.

At present, both China and the rest of the world are going through significant changes. They will bring more favorable conditions for Hong Kong. We firmly believe Hong Kong, as a global financial center, will be more stable and prosperous.

The writer is Party secretary of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, and chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.