Shenzhen

The city Harry calls the most advanced in the world, in southern China, just over the border from Hong Kong.

The numbers are the story. In 1980 this was a town of about 30,000 people — the size of Harry’s own town in England. By 2026 it has over 17 million. It was the first special economic zone under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms: capitalist controls were introduced here, foreign investment was allowed in, companies flooded in for cheap labour, and the city followed.

Its role now is as the country’s testbed. When a Chinese company has new technology, it launches it here first — which is why a visitor sees things that don’t exist elsewhere yet.

The technology

• Driverless taxis. A separate app from the usual Alipay booking, confined to one district while it’s tested. Harry’s ride cost 2.4 yuan — around 35 cents — for ten to fifteen minutes, because there’s no driver to pay.
  • You need a Chinese ID card to book one, which effectively rules out foreigners travelling alone.
  • It won’t pull up exactly where you asked, and it got stuck in the road once.
  • Harry raises the obvious question on camera — how many jobs this removes — and doesn’t resolve it.
• Drone food delivery, at Shenzhen Technology Park: eight outlets including KFC and McDonald’s, ordered on a phone and lowered to a collection point in a box you put back afterwards. It took about 20 minutes, which he notes is the least efficient milk tea he’s ever had, and draws a crowd of locals looking up who are as interested as he is.
• A walking exoskeleton sold in a mall — powered legs that drive your stride for you. 14,000 yuan, about $2,000. Harry’s assessment is that it’s a gimmick for him and genuinely useful for the elderly or anyone with a mobility problem.

Safety and surveillance

Cameras everywhere, and no way to be anywhere in the city without one pointing at you — which Harry says feels odd. The British expat he’s with, who has lived here four years, rates it one of the safest places in the world and says he never has a worry walking around. His grandparents message him about how unsafe it must look.

Both note that Western perception of China is improving and still isn’t close to what they experience.

Practical

• Alipay is essential. Western apps stop working at the border.
• UK passports are now visa-free for mainland China. Otherwise, 54 countries can use the 240-hour transit visa with an onward ticket — see use a transit visa.
• The city is greener than expected for its density, and full of cranes, which Harry uses as his measure of how fast a place is growing.

Getting out: the Hong Kong train

One of the busiest border crossings in the world, with high-speed trains to Hong Kong roughly every five minutes.

• 14 minutes, about £14.
• Book on Trip.com and use your passport as the ticket — nothing to collect, scanned straight at the gate.
• Business class is 2+2 instead of 3+3 and Harry’s verdict is that it isn’t worth it over a 14-minute run, for about $5 more.
• The network: 45,000 km of high-speed rail, usually running at up to 350 km/h, 95% on-time performance — and fares priced by distance rather than by demand, which he points out is the fairest possible arrangement for the passenger and the opposite of the British system.

Harry’s tips

• Take a driverless taxi if you can get on the app — cheaper than a normal one and unlike anything available in the West.
• Bring a Chinese friend, or a Chinese ID. Half the good technology here is gated behind one.
• Book rail on Trip.com and travel on your passport.
• Skip business class on the short hops.

Source

• I Went to One of the Wealthiest and Most Advanced Cities — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T263hFcMBoA