The "Build up the Cultural Strength of the Greater Bay Area" forum kicks off on June 8, 2023, in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. (ZHOU MO / CHINA DAILY)

Cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should leverage their diverse cultural resources to promote cultural integration and strive to build a cultural system with Chinese characteristics, experts and scholars said.

The future of multicultural development lies in integration, not confrontation, Cheng Pei-kai, chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association Hong Kong branch, said in a speech at the “Building up the Cultural Strength of the Greater Bay Area” sub-forum in Shenzhen on Thursday.

Hosted by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the sub-forum is one of the parallel sessions of the Forum on Building up China’s Cultural Strength, which includes one main forum and seven other sub-forums. 

We should leverage the diverse cultural resources in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to develop a cultural system with Chinese characteristics, in order to provide a solid foundation for ‘building the world into a whole family’.

Cheng Pei-kai, Chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association Hong Kong branch

Multiple cultures converge in the Greater Bay Area, Cheng said. From a historical perspective, Zhongyuan culture and Lingnan culture contain both conflicting and confluent elements; from a global perspective, the Hong Kong and Macao cultures have Western characteristics integrated within them.

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“We should leverage the diverse cultural resources in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to develop a cultural system with Chinese characteristics, in order to provide a solid foundation for ‘building the world into a whole family’,” he said.

Cheng suggested that Greater Bay Area cities should set up multicultural development bases and invite scholars and art professionals from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas to promote cultural development in the region. 

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Chen Chunsheng, secretary of the Party Committee of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in Guangzhou and head of the Institute for the Study of Lingnan Culture at SYSU, said the development of Lingnan culture is an exchange process among people of different origins and cultures, and the development of the Greater Bay Area is no different. 

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Though the cultures of the three regions -- Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong -- may differ slightly due to historical reasons, the people of those regions all come from the Lingnan culture, he said. 

“We should fully leverage the valuable resources that people in the GBA share the same regional culture to promote the cultural integration and bonding in the region,” he said.

sally@chinadailyhk.com