Border Control

The Hong Kong MTR (Mass Transit Railway) map shows two places where a rail line comes to an end and where another line begins in a just a short distance. This is an accurate portrayal of the situation at the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Under China’s ‘One Country Two Systems’ policy, although Hong Kong is part of China, there is still a border.

One who intends to cross the border must go through the usual border controls: presentation of travel document (with visa as needed), passing through customs (easy if nothing to declare), and, in these days of the H1N1 pandemic, presenting a health declaration and having one’s body temperature monitored. All of this formality seems to say that the emphasis is more on ‘two systems’ than on ‘one country.’ But actually, the real emphasis at the border remains on control.

Shenzhen is a city in China’s Guangdong province, situated immediately north of the border it shares with what is now the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Owing to China’s economic liberalization under the policies of former Chairman the late, Deng Xiaoping, and preparations for the 1997 reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty the area became China’s first - and arguably the most successful of these special economic zones.

Shenzhen certainly is a boom town, reputed to be one of the fastest growing cities in the world.  People, some with official permission to live there and some without that important document, have poured into the city from poorer regions to the north and west. Officially, even Chinese citizens are not free to seek a better life by just moving to a more prosperous part of the country.

Shenzhen’s modern, if somewhat sterile, cityscape is the result of the vibrant economy made possible by and influx of foreign investment since the late 1970s, when it was a small fishing village. Since then, foreign nations have invested more than $30 billion for building factories and forming joint ventures.

Like Shanghai and despite being in a country that continues to have Chairman Mao’s portrait on its currency, Shenzhen is home to a stock exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies. Shenzhen is also the second busiest port in mainland China, after Shanghai. Despite the worldwide economic downturn, huge container ships can still be seen heading down the Pearl river delta for the open ocean and distant ports.

All of this international trade has brought many foreigners to Shenzhen. As a measure of just how cosmopolitan it has become, there is an international school in Shenzhen that was originally set up by four oil companies with operations in the South China Sea. The school presently has over 500 students representing 34 different countries. Among them 28% are American, 55% are Asian and 17% are European. The faculty consists of over 75 teachers coming from the United States, Canada, U.K., New Zealand, India, the Philippines, Guatemala, and China. Catholics who live in the vicinity of the school, have formed a club to help them support each other in their faith.

By about 2004, Shenzhen had seven churches or legal meeting places for Chinese Catholics. And with more and more expatriates investing, working, studying and living in Shenzhen, there began to be a demand for English masses. For about the last five years, Shenzhen’s largest Catholic churches have provided English services. This was begun under the watchful eye of Li Jianping, director-general of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs. St. Anthony’s Church on Nonglin Road in Futian District is probably the best known of these. These communities are close to Hong Kong where there are Columban and other religious communities operating freely, because of ‘One Country Two Systems.” But discretion limits what we can do for any Catholics in Shenzhen, or what we can say about it in print.

Today thousands of Hong Kongers have moved to Shenzhen for cheaper rent. And especially on weekends people cross the border to get the more affordable luxuries like gourmet Chinese food or facials and foot massages. On returning trains and ferries most people seem to be carrying bundles.

Shenzen and its environs were certainly were a very different place in the early 1950s, though the Church would have probably been under less subtle control. It was just a dusty village when Bishop Edward Galvin, the founder of the Columbans, was deported from China and crossed the border into Lo Wu on the Hong Kong side.

Columban Fr Aedan McGrath, who was in prison in China from September, 1951 until May of 1954 also tasted freedom upon crossing the border from what is now Shenzhen. He described the scene: “Then we approached the border, a little barbed wire fence. Two or three British policemen, very smart, were on the other side.... A crowd came along, poor women carrying babies and dragging things. Only the poorer type of person would be let into Hong Kong – I mean would be let out of communist China – and possibly, a great number of them were doing spy work. Then we went across Lo Wu Bridge. It was a Sunday afternoon, the first Sunday in May, and I heard the first  - after three years- decent word of kindness. “Welcome, Father!” said the British policeman. He brought us into his room, into the beautiful fresh free air and gave us a glass of beer each.” Fr Ambrose Poletti PIME was called from the nearby village of Fanling in Hong Kong’s New Territories. “He came in and gave us coffee and chocolate, a royal welcome. That was the beginning of our freedom.”

Bishop Galvin died in 1956 when Chairman Mao was still consolidating his power. But Fr McGrath lived till 2000, so Shenzhen’s transformation was well underway by that time. But it is easy to imagine both of them shaking their heads at the glitzy shopping malls on the Shenzhen side of the border.  It even easier to imagine a certain joyful satisfaction that there are vibrant Catholic communities in the new Shenzhen, But at the same time, there would be exasperation that, despite all the development, growth and economic liberalization, there are not more of worshipping communities and that some officials still feel an excessive need to control them.

Fr John Burger SSC is currently on the General Council of the Columban Fathers.

Read more articles from the current E-News