Possible solution to controversial San Tin Technopole plan

Mark Pinkstone/Former Chief Information Officer of HK government

The never-ending debate about saving the environment and development has now turned to the upper most regions of the New Territories. Consultation on the San Tin Technopole is seeing debate on both sides, but a solution may be on the horizon.

The San Tin Technopole is part of a much grander development, known as the Northern Metropolis, announced by then Chief Executive Carrie Lam in her annual policy speech in 2021. As a visionary plan for the future development of Hong Kong it stretches along the entire Shenzhen River (Shum Chun River) boundary with Shenzhen, covering an area of about 300 square kilometres, or about one third of the total land area of Hong Kong. It will eventually have a population of about 2.5 million people, providing about 650,000 jobs. About 150,00 jobs will be in the innovation and technology sector.

The Technopole will be the centrepiece of the overall development, but it comes with a price. Large expanses of wetlands, home to many species of migrating birds, will be sacrificed to make way for new development. Naturally, conservationists and green groups are opposed to the plan and at last count some 80 per cent of submissions to the Town Planning Board were against the proposals. And the de facto authority for the New Territories, the Heung Yee Kuk, insists that the villages should also be integrated in the overall, which, at present, they are not.

Hong Kong is currently experiencing a golden era for innovation and technology (I&T) development, which is quickly emerging as the new driving force for future economic growth. Major science parks are already well established the Cyberport in Pokfulam and at the Science Park in Sha Tin. The San Tin Technopole, by integrating the Lok Ma Chau Loop with land in the San Tin area, will further promote I&T cooperation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, alongside the Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Zone on the other side of the river.

The Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park (HSITP), which is located in the San Tin Technopole, covers 87 hectares of land. With funding approval in early 2021, HSITP’s first phase of development involves eight buildings and will provide an estimated gross floor area of about 116 550 square metres, including research and development (R&D) buildings with laboratories and offices, InnoCell and facilities for setting up an InnoLife Healthtech Hub to focus on R&D in life and health disciplines. InnoCell already located in Hong Kong Science is a pilot project of using Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) in Hong Kong. It provides a minimum of 500-bed spaces with supporting ancillary facilities including recreational and shared living/working space integrated with the residential units], This first phase is expected to be completed in phases from end-2024 onwards.

Already new roads spinning off the northern highway are being built and a forest of cranes dot the horizon at Kwu Tung North.

The rugged terrain of Hong Kong has created land shortages which led Carrie Lam to unveil two new areas for development – the Lantau Tomorrow Vision and the Northern Metropolis in her policy address. The latter, which has priority over the Lantau plan, is expected to provide some 350,000 housing units.

As for the fish ponds, Hong Kong once had a thriving aquaculture industry with much of the New Territories being a multi-patched quilt of fishponds. Today, this has diminished dramatically to become a “sunset” industry with pond fish farmers producing only four to five per cent of fish eaten locally. Many of the ponds remain empty or drained and serve no purpose to the economy or the environment. This was further confirmed by Charman of the Hong Kong Environment Protection Association, Fan Xitai questions in the local press if the ecological value of the area is viable. He believes that more than 60 per cent of the ponds are abandoned or idle and many are filled with chemical and construction waste.

Development, on the other hand brings great economic benefits, but its high-rise buildings and infrastructure facilities will scare off migrating birds and constrain their natural habitat.
However, a coalition of the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects (HKILA) and the Hong Kong Wild Life Fund for Nature (WWF) have teamed up to present a balance in the debate. The HKILA also established a platform between Shenzhen and Hong Kong experts to formulate the guiding principals for ecological and landscape planning in the area.

It proposes creating a multifunctional green space to provide recreational, flood attenuation and wastewater treatment functions while enhancing the habitat connectivity of Deep Bay; create the first ecological corridor for otters in China; and among other things, adjust the building height restrictions in the Mai Po Lung Egretry and Lok Ma Chau to avoid the impact brought by high rise buildings in the flight corridors of migrating birds.

The technology buildings will be located in the centre of the protected areas.

How this will be received by the Town Planning Board is still uncertain. At least it is a plan to be carefully considered to bring peace of mind to both the developers and conservationists. But, more importantly, development of the Northern Metropolis will strengthen Hong Kong’s position in the Greater Bay Area expansion plans.

Mark Pinkstone

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

Here's a simple truth about lies: tell one big enough, and someone will always believe it. The tale spun by Jimmy Lai's son and daughter—that their father's health is collapsing in prison without medical care—is a textbook case.

Before and after the verdict came down, a flood of misleading commentary washed across foreign media. In just eight days following the ruling, China's Foreign Ministry Commissioner's Office in the HKSAR fired off eight separate rebuttals targeting U.S. and Western statements. They also "summoned the heads of the Hong Kong-based missions of relevant countries and organisations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and lodged solemn representations regarding their officials' and politicians' comments interfering in the verdict and sentencing in the Jimmy Lai case."

Cui Jianchun, the Commissioner, went further. He published a South China Morning Post piece titled "On the Jimmy Lai case, this is what you should know"—a direct hit against the rumor mill. The key question: Was Lai treated unfairly? Cui's answer was unequivocal: "Regarding the claims about Jimmy Lai's treatment while in custody, facts speak louder than words. The Correctional Services Department has consistently provided him with comprehensive medical care in accordance with the law, ensuring he remains in good health. Lai's defence lawyers confirmed in court that he had not been treated unfairly. These facts fully demonstrate that in every detail of law enforcement, the HKSAR government upholds the principles of the rule of law and humanitarianism."

The Children's Campaign of Fabrication

A large chunk of those rumors came straight from Lai's own children. On December 3, before the verdict dropped, Agence France-Presse interviewed them. The picture they painted was grim. Lai's daughter Lai Choi delivered the most dramatic claim: "Dad has clearly lost a lot of weight and is weaker than before. His fingernails turned purple, grey and green, and then fell off. His teeth have started to rot."

But wait, there's more. Lai Choi claimed prison officers blocked the devout Catholic from receiving Holy Communion. She described petty acts designed to break his spirit. Her example? Once guards learned Lai liked curry sauce, they cut him off completely—no more curry sauce at all.

Lai's son Lai Chung-yan piled on with his own dramatic narrative. Lai has diabetes, he said. The prison has no air-conditioning, with summer temperatures hitting 44°C. His solution? "Putting Lai on a plane and sending him away would take only two hours, and that doing so would be humane and the right thing to do."

I'm quoting at length for a reason. Watch how the lies unfold. Yes, Lai has diabetes. The fact is, he had spent years eating and drinking excessively. In prison, he's forced onto a healthy diet. As a Justice of the Peace I have visited prisons multiple times, and personally sampled the meals arranged according to dietitians' guidance. They taste like fast food you'd buy outside—perfectly normal.

Reality Check: What Observers Actually Saw

When Lai appeared in court, observers did notice he was slimmer than before imprisonment. But this is what I'd call a "healthy kind of slim." As for the curry sauce demand? Perhaps Lai Choi has confused Hong Kong prisons with Michelin-starred restaurants—as if inmates can order à la carte like diners at a high-end eatery. By the same logic, yes, there's no air-conditioning in prisons. People need to understand something fundamental: imprisonment is punishment, not a hotel vacation.

About those supposedly green, falling-off nails. When Lai attended the verdict hearing, people present saw his fingernails were normally pink and looked quite healthy. No one spotted any horrifying grey or green nails. None had fallen off. The real-world scene of Lai appearing in court told a different story—he looked to be in fairly good condition, nowhere near the death's-door state his children described.

Why are Lai's children lying so brazenly? Simple. They want foreign readers to believe Hong Kong's prisons operate like "dark jails" in a third-world country—that Lai is being abused. This makes their "rescue" campaign appear more necessary and urgent. It conveniently helps people forget what Lai actually is: a serious criminal who colluded with foreign forces seeking China's collapse.

The Question Lawyers Won't Answer

Everyone needs to grasp one simple fact: if Lai were truly being treated inhumanely, his own defence lawyers would have raised it in court. But lawyers can't lie. So they didn't. At an open hearing last August, Lai's senior counsel made crystal clear to the court that the correctional institution arranged daily medical check-ups for Lai. They had no complaints—zero—about the medical care he received inside. The court even stated at the time that the Correctional Services Department deserved praise.

It seems Lai's children think being overseas gives them a free pass to lie recklessly without bearing any responsibility. That's how you get fabrications like "fingernails turned green and fell off." They're spreading rumors about Lai's supposedly dire health for one purpose: to disrupt Hong Kong's rule of law and spring the convicted criminal through medical bail, then hand him over to a foreign country. But Hong Kong, as a society governed by the rule of law, has no arrangement to transfer convicted prisoners to foreign states. So no matter what rumors they spread, their goal won't be achieved.

Lo Wing-hung