The church's history—and future—in the world's largest megacity
In the Pearl River Delta, Christianity is more than just a memory.
The picturesque-sounding Pearl River Delta is at the heart of the global economy. It is part of Guangdong province, which for centuries was the most outward-looking and globally minded part of China. The Portuguese had a trading colony here at Macau, and in the 19th century the Thirteen Factories of the city of Guangzhou (Canton) were among the few trading centers open to Western merchants. Following the Opium Wars of the 1840s, the British developed their own thriving colony of Hong Kong.
The astonishing modern economic story begins in 1980, when the Chinese government created a Special Economic Zone in the delta city of Shenzhen. The city of Guangzhou achieved the same status shortly afterward. This opening to free enterprise and globalization detonated the explosive growth of modern China. Today, the nine metropolitan areas of the PRD constitute the world’s largest megacity, with 65 million people and 40 million more in the wider region. (Because of their special administrative status, closely connected Hong Kong and Macau are considered separately.) The region generates a quarter of Chinese exports, and its fast-growing regional GDP presently exceeds $1.2 trillion. The “Silicon Delta” is central to Chinese innovation and dynamism.
The delta is also significant from the point of view of Christian history. A polymath scholar could write a wonderful history of East Asian Christianity since the 16th century by centering on the three core cities of Macau, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
