What comes to mind when you think of Dongguan?
Is it the “world’s factory” known for “Dongguan traffic jams causing global shortages,” the major foreign trade city located between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, or the youthful new image in recent years as the “city of basketball” and “city of trends”?
In fact, Dongguan is also a coastal city with 82.57 square kilometers of sea area and 112.2 kilometers of coastline. However, over the years, this image of a maritime city has often been overlooked.
In the 21st century, the world has entered the era of bay areas. Bay areas are naturally inclined towards the sea, embodying an inherent openness. With their advantageous geographical locations and role as connectors to global markets, they have become engines of the world economy.
In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the basic framework of an international first-class bay area and world-class city cluster has already been established, with construction progressing in depth. As a former pioneer of openness, how can Dongguan open up new growth spaces for urban transformation in the bay area era?
June 8th of this year marked the 16th World Oceans Day. In the context of new geographical conditions and economic transformation, from the perspective of urban development, we seek to explore how Dongguan can “prosper by the sea and strengthen by the sea.”
Shifting the focus of development towards the sea
Dongguan, located at the strategic mouth of the Pearl River, holds a pivotal position in maritime affairs. This is the first sentence of the “Ancient Dongguan” exhibition at the Dongguan Museum, highlighting Dongguan's role as a maritime hub.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, Guangzhou attracted hundreds of thousands of overseas merchants, and Dongguan was the essential route for domestic and foreign merchant ships entering and leaving Guangzhou. Even during the Qing Dynasty, when Guangzhou’s Customs House operated a “single port trade” system, all ships entering Huangpu had to stop at the Humen Fort checkpoint in Dongguan for inspection. Dongguan thus became the sole crucial gateway to China’s inland waterways.
Diagram of the route taken by foreign merchant ships entering Guangzhou during the Qing Dynasty’s “single port trade” period. Source: Nansha District Local Chronicles Office, Guangzhou
Despite Dongguan’s historically significant maritime strategic position, the city’s “maritime character” has remained largely unnoticed by the outside world for many years.
When we trace the pointers of history, we find that compared to living by the sea, thriving along the river was the initial “open way” for the millennia-old city of Dongguan. The Dong River flows ceaselessly, nourishing fertile soil that gave rise to a major agricultural county. The dense network of waterways spurred commercial prosperity, with people taking boats and rowing across the water. The titles “Hometown of Dragon Boats” and “Hometown of Swimming” also originated from this rich aquatic lifestyle.
Riding the wave of reform and opening up, “three-processing and one compensation” enterprises flourished everywhere, and Dongguan people washed their feet and went to the fields, wearing shoes to enter factories. Industrialization progressed rapidly, bringing new demands for urbanization. Building bridges over water and carving roads through mountains, in over 40 years, Dongguan transformed from having only “one kilometer of cement road” to achieving a road density of 2.14 kilometers per square kilometer, becoming a “city on wheels” connecting Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. The saying “When Dongguan has traffic jams, the world runs out of stock” vividly illustrates the value of Dongguan’s land routes and the achievements of its inland industrial development.
As a result, Dongguan’s maritime channels are not prominent, and the marine functions and value have not been effectively developed, creating the impression of being “coastal but without a sea.”
Today, around 60% of the global economic volume comes from port bay areas and their immediate hinterlands. The world has seen the emergence of four major bay areas: the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, New York Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, and Tokyo Bay Area, standing side by side. The bay area economy is characterized by marine features, innovation leadership, high openness, agglomerated development, and suitability for living and working, making it a prominent highlight on the current international economic map.
With the advancement of the national strategy of constructing the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the development focus of cities on both sides of the Pearl River estuary is gradually shifting “within the bay.” Shenzhen is expanding westward to Qianhai, Guangzhou is moving southward to Nansha, and Hong Kong and Macao are extending northward, creating a trend of resource convergence.
Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge Source: Radio The Greater Bay
At the same time, the “A”-shaped mouth of the Pearl River is being stitched together with an array of mega-projects: Humen Bridge, Nansha Bridge, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, Shiziyang Tunnel, and the Shenzhen-Jiangmen High-Speed Railway. These projects enhance cross-sea transportation connectivity. Cities in the Pearl River Delta are accelerating their efforts to “seize the coast,” focusing their innovative resources and key platforms at the Pearl River estuary.
Diagram of Mega Projects at the Pearl River Estuary
Dongguan is no exception. After the 2008 international financial crisis, Dongguan clearly aimed to transform from “borrowing ships to go abroad” to “building ships to go abroad,” promoting the leap of manufacturing to mid-to-high-end through independent innovation. Seizing the opportunities presented by the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, technological innovation and regional collaborative openness have become new focal points for Dongguan’s “second venture.”
Today, Dongguan is more focused than ever on how to “embrace the sea.”
Opening the map of Dongguan, the area originally belonging to the southwest of Dongguan, along the eastern coast of the Pearl River estuary, is the region closest to the sea. It still retains contiguous undeveloped land, which is especially valuable in the highly developed eastern coast of the Pearl River. This area, separated from Shenzhen by a river, facing Guangzhou across the sea, and adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, has an inherent advantage in physical space for connectivity.
In 2017, with the support of the provincial party committee and the provincial government, the Binhaiwan Bay Area of Dongguan emerged, encompassing the three major sections of Jiaoyi Bay, Shajiao Peninsula, and Weiyuan Island, with a total sea and land area of 84.1 square kilometers. In 2019, the “Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area” was officially released, supporting the cooperation between Dongguan and Hong Kong to develop the Dongguan Binhaiwan Bay Area and create a distinctive cooperation platform in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Planning Map of the Three Major Sections of the Binhaiwan Bay Area
The establishment of physical space has opened up more possibilities for Dongguan’s connection with the sea.
From rivers to mountains, from lakes to the sea, the emergence of the Binhaiwan Bay Area highlights Dongguan’s new image and presence as a coastal city. This vibrant land has become an important platform for Dongguan to implement its bay and sea-oriented strategy and to deeply participate in the construction of the Greater Bay Area.
Economic landscape towards the sea
Among the 14 distinctive cooperation platforms in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, only the Jiangmen Daguanghai Bay Economic Zone, Dongguan Binhaiwan Bay Area, and Zhongshan Cuiheng New Area are located along the coast and bay. Comparatively, the Dongguan Binhaiwan Bay Area, situated on the eastern coast of the Pearl River, has a unique geographical advantage in leveraging the resources of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, as well as in resource aggregation and external connectivity.
From Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor to the Northern Metropolis, from Shenzhen’s Luohu and Futian to Nanshan and Qianhai, from Guangzhou’s Tianhe Central District to Huangpu High-tech Zone and Nansha New Area, the development focuses of the three major cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong are gradually converging. This forms a “regional backbone” of innovation resource aggregation and dynamic growth, connecting major technology innovation nodes.
Dongguan is the “middle city” and “manufacturing powerhouse” along this development “backbone,” but for many years, its value in the regional spatial pattern and the technological innovation industrial belt has been easily overlooked, making it notably “low-key.”
“With a population of ten million and a GDP of one trillion yuan, Dongguan is a megacity that would be considered a ‘giant’ in any other province. However, it has long faced the awkward situation of being overshadowed by the three major cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong,” said Song Ding, Deputy Director of the China Urban Economy Expert Committee. He believes that Binhaiwan is a natural “depression” on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen coastal belt. It is not only the most cost-effective area in terms of comprehensive costs but also possesses rich natural and historical cultural resources. It is set to become the core area for establishing the city based on the ocean and reshaping its economic structure and urban image through the marine economy.
In the past few years, Binhaiwan has continuously accumulated new momentum in opening up to the outside world, fully demonstrating Dongguan’s determination to “strive towards the sea.”
Building a coastal economic belt through regional collaboration.
With the expansion of Qianhai in Shenzhen, the Maozhou River Basin has shifted from being on the “periphery” of Shenzhen to becoming the “new center.” Looking across the Maozhou River from Binhaiwan to Qianhai, high-level urban functions such as the Convention and Exhibition Ocean City and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation City are accelerating their layout.
On the west bank of the Maozhou River in Binhaiwan, major investments have already been made by unicorn companies OPPO and vivo. The first phase of the OPPO Intelligent Manufacturing Center is set to start production this year. Additionally, significant industry projects such as the Little Genius Intelligent Technology Center, Kexing Science Park, and OFILM Bay Area Innovation Center are accelerating their construction, with the total investment agreements for major industry projects nearing 47 billion yuan.
As the Dongguan New Generation Artificial Intelligence Technology Research Institute and the Binhaiwan International Open Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community unleash their innovation potential, the Great Bay University (Binhaiwan Campus) and University Science Park are being planned for implementation. The talent chain, industry chain, and innovation chain will achieve deep integration in Binhaiwan.
First phase of the OPPO Intelligent Manufacturing Center Industrial Park
According to Zhu Rongyuan, Deputy Chief Planner of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, Binhaiwan is located in the “waist” of the Greater Bay Area and is set to become an important hub for the northern extension of the eastern coast of the Pearl River. The mouth of the Maozhou River is expected to become a concentrated area for science and technology innovation services in the Greater Bay Area, developed in cooperation between Dongguan and Shenzhen.
Actively participating in the construction of the Shenzhen metropolitan area, Binhaiwan is striving to be approved as a pilot zone for the high-quality integrated development of the Pearl River Estuary in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is also working to integrate into the port and aviation economic cluster of the Qianhai Area—Binhaiwan Bay Area—Cuiheng New Area and proactively connect with the transfer of high-end services and policy spillovers from Shenzhen’s Greater Airport.
Diagram of the Shenzhen Metropolitan Area
Leveraging the advantage of the Binhaiwan Bay Area as a “testing ground” for the Dongguan Development Zone within the provincial Free Trade Zone, and focusing on the Nansha Free Trade Area, efforts will be made to promote the sharing of experiences in reforms, innovation, and opening up in such fields as investment, trade, and finance between the two zones. The goal is to create replicable and promotable reform examples and to foster exchanges and cooperation between scientific and technological innovation platforms like the Nansha Science City and the Binhaiwan Bay Area University Science Park.
Soft and hard connectivity: Integrating into the new pattern of external circulation.
Renowned financial writer Wu Xiaobo mentioned that Southeast Asia has become the second growth pole for Chinese factories. As one of China’s new pivots for opening up, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area targets the populous markets of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. From Dongguan’s foreign trade data, the trade volume with Southeast Asia has been increasing year by year, with more and more local enterprises entering the international market through Southeast Asia.
Unlike the era dominated by Hong Kong capital, which relied mainly on highways, ports and airports will play a more critical role in facing Southeast Asia. Binhaiwan is close to Shenzhen Airport, Dongguan Port, and Nansha Port, highlighting its prominent transportation advantages. The “14th Five-Year Plan” for Binhaiwan Bay Area proposes to deeply participate in the RCEP and the “Belt and Road” Initiative to promote the formation of a new open economic system and pattern aligned with international standards.
At the same time, the design of the new Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal TOD project and the relocation of the old Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal passenger station are also progressing rapidly. In the future, the new Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal will be interconnected with major ports such as Shenzhen Prince Bay Cruise Terminal and Nansha Cruise Terminal, creating a high-quality water transportation hub. The “South Bay” coastal living room, centered around the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal TOD, will also become the “new gateway to the sea” for Dongguan.
Rendering of the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal Complex
Urban civilization towards the sea
When the dream of “embracing the sea” is realized in urban planning and construction, a 42-kilometer coastline “corridor” runs throughout the city’s planning.
Ma Xiangming, Chief Engineer at the Guangdong Urban and Rural Planning and Design Institute, believes that Binhaiwan’s suitable bay scale, excellent views, unique mountain-sea resources, and cultural heritage as the “starting point of modern history” make it an ideal candidate for developing into a charming new marine city in the Bay Area.
This coastline is both an ecological line and the main artery connecting coastal life and production. It will become a “representative space + iconic carrier” that highlights Dongguan’s image as a coastal city and its integration into the Greater Bay Area.
Starting from mudflats and fishponds, the ecological corridor along the Jiaoyi Bay section of Dongguan’s Golden Coast now features landmark bridges, park green islands, and a chain of pearls. Numerous rare bird species “endorse” the ecological construction of Binhaiwan, showcasing the increasingly prominent “blue-green” urban foundation. Binhaiwan is leading the way in building a provincial-level “Beautiful Bay.”
In recent years, visiting Binhaiwan for sea views, cycling, and recreation has become a “new trend” for Dongguan residents. Binhaiwan has also brought cultural, sports, and tourism activities, consumption scenes, and festival celebrations to the coast and seaside lawns, allowing citizens to share, build, and coexist with the marine space.
National engineering survey and design master, and expert from the Central Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Expert Advisory Committee, Li Xiaojiang, stated that the logic of urban development has shifted from “gathering people through industry” to “attracting people through the city.”
“Plant a phoenix tree, and the phoenix will come.” Binhaiwan benchmarks first-tier cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, optimizing the urban environment, building high-quality public facilities, and creating a coastal living atmosphere, aiming to turn environmental advantages into “soft power” for talent attraction, retention, and investment promotion.
“The reason why enterprises choose Binhaiwan is not only because of Dongguan’s complete industrial chain but also Binhaiwan’s convenient transportation and beautiful environment, providing the conditions for creating a talent and technology park suitable for both work and living,” said Bu Jieping, Project Director of OPPO Intelligent Manufacturing Center.
With the advancement of the planning for the Shajiao Peninsula Coastal Cultural District, citizens will be able to experience a library, science museum, cultural center, and coastal cultural and arts center with stunning sea views in Binhaiwan, establishing new cultural landmarks for Dongguan’s “embracing the sea” initiative.
Living towards the sea means not only expanding living and development spaces but also bringing maritime historical heritage into the spotlight. This enriches and broadens the connotation of the marine city, integrating maritime civilization into people’s daily lives.
Along the coasts of Shajiao Peninsula and Weiyuan Island, ancient forts stand majestically, with the weathered “Great Wall of the Sea” towering amid the crashing waves.
This area is one of the ancient battlefields of the Opium War and the largest and most well-preserved military defense facility among China’s coastal defense sites. It is also a unique historical and cultural landmark of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and a national symbol of maritime defense. Over the past few decades, due to scattered spatial resources and a lack of top-level planning and design, the Opium War coastal defense site has not been fully developed, and the city’s cultural identity as the “starting point of modern history” needs to be revitalized.
“Binhaiwan has limited spatial resources but abundant temporal resources. Over 200 years, from the Opium War to the present, many historical traces have accumulated here, including forts, Shajiao Power Plant, and Xinyuan Fishing Port,” mentioned Ma Xiangming. He emphasized that urban development should fully excavate cultural resources and transform them into “time consumption scenes” for modern people to experience and feel.
In August 2023, the Publicity Department of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism jointly released the “Overall Plan for the Opium War Coastal Defense Sites Park.” The plan aims to significantly enhance the overall protection of the historic sites and the development of cultural tourism, contributing to the construction of a culturally rich bay area, a leisure bay area, and a world-class tourism destination.
Under the coordination of Dongguan City, the Binhaiwan Bay Area and Humen Town jointly undertake the construction of the Opium War Coastal Defense Sites Park (Dongguan section). The development and revitalization of resources in the Weiyuan Fort and Shajiao Fort areas are responsibilities shouldered by Binhaiwan.
In recent years, Binhaiwan has initiated the comprehensive enhancement project around the Naval Battle Museum on Weiyuan Island, constructing new facilities such as the Book Roll Station, Tourist Service Center, and Station Square to improve the tourist experience.
Capitalizing on its natural endowment of being backed by mountains and facing the sea, along with its quality landscape environment, Binhaiwan plans to organize more cultural tourism activities that appeal to young people. This will infuse new meaning into the ancient sites, creating a cultural identity and voice for Dongguan in the construction of the Greater Bay Area’s identity and cultural recognition.
Dongguan’s journey of embracing the sea is flourishing.
Source: Nanfang +
Written by Wu Bitong, Guo Wenjun
