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MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES Número 13 Maio de 2004 • Number 13 May 2004
Gary M. C. Ngai
MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
Gary M. C. Ngai
Published by the International Institute of Macau Número 13 Maio de 2004 (Presented at AILASA VI International conference Adelaide, July 2004) Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies
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MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
ORIENTEOCIDENTE “newsletter” do IIM Instituto Internacional de Macau Número 13 Maio de 2004 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Produção IIM Design Gráfico victor hugo design Impressão Tipografia Hung Heng Tiragem 1.500 exemplares EASTWEST IIM ”newsletter” Published by the International Institute of Macau Number 13 May 2004 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies
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Gary M. C. Ngai
MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
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MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
Gary M. C. Ngai Member of the Board of the Macau Sino-Latin Foundation Researcher and author of editions on Macau, China and its international relations. (Presented at AILASA VI International Conference Adelaide, July 2004)
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1. MACAU’S IDENTITY – PART OF THE LATIN WORLD Macau, a tiny enclave on the West coast of the Pearl River,1 opposite Hong Kong in South China, has been neglected by the world community since it fell into the shadow of Hong Kong in the 19th and 20th century. It once became the focus of world attention when this small city, the first and last Western settlement in China, was returned to its motherland on the 20th of December 1999 and becomes a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. However, not many people in the world could really understand the fact that Macau, different from Hong Kong and other cities in China, has throughout its own historical process of more than 4 centuries, created its unique cultural identity, which could be formulated as Sino-Latin, while the strong Latin flavor, with the Portuguese language as an official language perpetuating into the 21st century, has made Macau an inseparable part of the world Latin family. The possibility of enhancing Macau’s role, namely by acting as a bridge to bring China closer to the Latin world, is gradually turning into a reality, especially after October 2003, when Macau hosted the first official business meeting between the PRC and the 7 Portuguese speaking countries, attended by the Vice-Premier of China, urging Macau to play a better bridging role in the future to reduce the gap between China and the world Lusophone countries in economic and cultural terms. The author of this article, a scholar with experience of living in the PRC for 28 year, in Macau for 24 years, and elsewhere for 20 years, and also as a founding member of the Macau Sino-Latin Foundation, would hereby try to explain to the distinguished audience from AILASA, about the role of Macau as an ideal base to strengthen Sino-Latin ties. We have to start analyzing it from history. People were totally wrong when they neglected the 3 centuries of Macau before the Opium War in 1840. It EASTWEST 5
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was exactly this period that Macau did contribute a lot in world history by acting as a bridge bringing East and West, China and Europe, closer together in terms of trade and culture. Macau was able to survive and flourish, because it had in a sense served as an intermediary between the mighty but often closed empire of the Middle Kingdom and the European-centered capitalist world. Macau became an important hub for the Maritime Silk Route in the 16th and 17th century, linking it with Korea and Japan in the North, with Mexico and the American continent through Manila in the East, with Siam, Cambodia, Malacca, Macassar, Flores, Solor and Timor in the South, and through Goa with Africa and Europe, and through Europe to the east coast of mid and south America, including Brazil. It was through all these links that a global maritime trade began to take shape. The Chinese navigators and traders of that period witnessed how Portuguese, and later also Spanish, became the lingua franca (common language) to conduct foreign trade. Recent finding also showed that the trading links from Macau was also extended to Australia since the 18th century. When the Ming Dynasty was replaced by the Qing in the 17th century, foreign settlement was still restricted to Canton. This had the effect of causing Macau to be opened to European traders as a place of residence before going to or coming from Canton. Foreign ships had to be examined by Chinese customs officers in Macau before they were allowed to sail into Canton. That’s why by the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, Macau had a significant European community, with their consulates well established in this small territory, as described by the British writer Austin Coates: ”Macau became the outpost of all Europe in China.”2 In summing up the first 3 centuries of Macau’s existence as an important trade entrepot, we can say that the China-Europe relationship through Macau was mainly based on mutual benefit and mutual respect. Even if there are different interpretations of the benefits, the increasing trade brought a widespread and intensive cultural exchange between East and West. Almost from Macau’s foundation, a church presence was established. Macau became the center of the first diocese of the Catholic church in East Asia in 1575. In 1594, the S. Paul College, the first university of a western style in the Far East, was established in Macau, to train the Jesuits in the Chinese language, culture and customs, before starting their missionary work into mainland China. The Jesuits coming from different nations in Europe, especially from Latin Europe, like Matteo Ricci, Nicolaus Trigault, Thomas Pereira and others, became the first generation of outstanding Sinologists. The Jesuits together with their Chinese counterparts, like Xu Guangqi, Li Zichao, Mei Wenting and others, trained in Latin languages, brought about a two-way exchange of culture, by translating and introducing Western mathematics, astronomy, physics, architecture, medicine, weaponry, art of printing, music, fine arts, among other things, to the East, and introducing Chinese philosophy, literature, medicine, tea, porcelain, lacquerware, architecture and painting to the West. ORIENTEOCIDENTE 6
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This significant cultural interchange was one of Macau’s greatest contribution to world history. It was made possible because of mutual respect and mutual tolerance. The remaining ruins and façade of S. Paul’s Cathedral with its occidental and oriental design elements, is a symbol of Macau’s cultural identity. The multi-cultural identity involves the coexistence, interaction and blending of both East and West, in areas of folklore customs, architecture, literature, painting, music and gastronomy. The cultural blending resulted in the creation of a hybrid community, the Eurasian Macanese, 3 quite different from the pure Chinese and pure Portuguese. Such a hybrid community never came into existence in the parallel process of cultural interaction in neighboring Hong Kong. This community of Macanese, with bilingual or multilingual cultural characteristics, has played an important role in the history of Macau. The Macanese are the ones that have been bridging the cultural gap between the Portuguese and the Chinese. As a matter of fact, the establishment of Hong Kong in the early days had to rely upon the assistance and expertise provided by the Macanese. The Macanese, who called themselves filhos de terra ( natives of the place ), have the strongest sense of belonging among the local population. Although a strong diaspora took place after 1949 and 1966, they still feel attached to their native place, which was vividly expressed during the recent 4 encontros, gatherings of those who already left Macau, settling in Brazil, Portugal, Canada, the US and Australia. For the Chinese, Macau has been a springboard to go overseas, and has become a city of migrants. The earliest settlers were the seafarers and fishermen from Fujian, who brought with them the culture of Ah Ma, the goddess of seafarers who protected them all the way to Nan Yang ( South East Asia ), where they settled and brought back with them the Nan Yang Culture – the Overseas Chinese Culture, which has absorbed some native and western elements. Most of the old Chinese residents of Macau have relatives abroad. The diaspora became stronger during the nefarious “coolie trade” in the 19th century, the darkest page in Macau’s history, in which poor peasants from nearby regions were sold like “piglets” to virgin lands as far as Cuba, Peru and other places in the American continent. Historical records show that many Chinese during that period immigrated via Macau and Europe to Brazil. Macau became a shelter of refugees during the Second World War, when neighboring areas, including Hong Kong, were occupied by the Japanese. After the war, Macau again became a temporary stopping place for repatriated overseas Chinese panicked by the social turmoil in South East Asia and Africa.4 This endless influx and outflow of migrants, has given the local Chinese community a strong character of mobility, a mentality of inward ( their place of origin ) and outward ( overseas settlement) looking. The cultural interflow through Macau in the early days had a great social impact on both East and West. On the one hand it contributed to a deeper understanding of Europe about the East and to a creation of a new style of art, the Rococo style. On the other hand, many influential thinkers and leaders EASTWEST 7
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in China, most of whom came from areas near Macau in the South – such as the leader of the Taiping peasant rebellion, Hung Xiu-quan, who endorsed the principles of Christianity; the initiator of the Self-Strengthening Movement, Wei Yuan, by learning western technology; the anti-opium national hero Lin Ze-xu; leaders of the constitutional monarchy reform movement Kang Yu-wei and Liang Qi-chao; the open-minded mandarin entrepreneur Zheng Guan-ying who had great influence on both Sun Yat Sen and Mao Ze-dong; Rong Hong, the first Chinese student sent to study in the US; and last but not least the founder of the Chinese republic Dr. Sun Yat Sen – all of them had access to Western learning, either in Macau itself or in China through Macau in the early days of their life. During World War I and II, Macau remained neutral. After the 1949 Revolution in China, even in periods when China was blockaded, Macau remained an open window to the West, with some free flow of immigrants, capital and trade. This is quite positive for Macau in a sense that the very old traditions of Chinese folklore and customs, and some of the old Chinese cultural heritage, which have already been destroyed in mainland China due to civil wars and continuous social upheavals, including the Cultural Revolution, are still intact and well preserved in Macau. The old temples and shrines of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as the related traditional practices from birth to death, still comprise part of present-day social life for many Macau residents. The Chinese community in Macau, unlike the one in Hong Kong, has a longer history of exposure to the West, in which Chinese culture had to coexist, interact, clash and blend with culture from the West. This process of coexistence and interaction seems to produce different results compared to Hong Kong and other cities in China. In this small territory, there was no way for the Europeans to assimilate the millenia-old Chinese civilization, and no way for the Chinese to reject Western culture with its superiority in science and technology. The two sides have lived in harmony for most of the time, learning from each other and avoiding many violent clashes and conflicts. The high degree of tolerance within the Chinese and Latin cultures, has contributed a lot to this equilibrium. As a result, the religious freedom in Macau was well preserved. Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and the Bahai faith have been living side by side for centuries, retaining their own rituals and beliefs, without conflicts and bloodshed. This makes Macau strikingly different from mainland China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ireland, Middle East, the Balkans and many more territories, where religious bloodshed could not be avoided. It has become a unique phenomena in Macau, when the Bishop or priests and the Buddhist monks appeared together at major ceremonies of our local community, bestowing their blessing on our major events in their own tradition. Such religious tolerance is certainly scarce in the modern world. The adaptation of the Western political and legal system to the local Chinese community in the 20th century, especially after the Portuguese revolution in 1974,5 is another important experiment, especially for the new immigrants ORIENTEOCIDENTE 8
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from mainland China, who occupies more than half of the local Chinese community. It is quite obvious that many Western values have been accepted by the Chinese, especially by those with a better education. The increasing percentage of Chinese voters during the local election and the ever-growing demand among the local Chinese, especially the younger generation to defend the existing freedoms and the rule of law, is a striking example in the positive sense. Through the above summary of coexistence between Eastern and Western communities and cultures in Macau along history, we can easily see that the axis of it is Chinese and Portuguese, or Sino-Latin, surrounded by other communities and races in East and South East Asia, as well as small clusters of people originating from other countries in Europe, Africa and America, including Brazil. Macau is indeed a multi-racial and multi-cultural society, a melting pot of East and West. The interaction and blending of them is based on mutual respect and tolerance, implying more harmony than conflict, more check and balances than confrontation, more reconciliation than alienation, and maintaining a stability in plurality. This can be called the “Macau model”,6 different from the Hong Kong model, which is Anglo-Saxon, with more conflicts and confrontations with the Chinese. The Chinese leaders starting from the Ming emperor, down to Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, all knew and know how to preserve this identity to benefit China, and Deng was smart enough to call it the “one country two systems” formula, a tool or a bridge to link China with the rest of the world. The successful implementation and efficient operation of the second system is an important condition in preserving Macau’s identity and enabling Macau to play the role of a bridge. Outsiders have the responsibility of watching and closely monitoring whether the second system in both Hong Kong and Macau would not degenerate into the first system. It is important to watch that the ultra leftist and ultra nationalistic tendencies and feelings left over from Mao’s time that used to dominate the local Chinese community,7 will not get an upperhand in influencing the operation of the second system. People with these feelings regard our cultural heritage, especially its Latinity, including the Portuguese language, as colonial trash, and should be thrown overboard. Shortsightedness and ethno-centric ideas among the local population could erode, jeopardize and eradicate our identity, undermining the ”one country two systems” policy, destroying the future of our own survival and development, turning it quickly into another small Chinese city, an appendix to neighbouring Zhuhai.8 Of course this is all against the will of the Central Government in Beijing.9
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2. PRESERVING AND DEVELOPING OUR CULTURAL IDENTITY – AND ARDUOUS TASK AFTER THE HANDOVER One of the priorities after the handover is to conduct an in-depth, systematic interdisciplinary research , with emphasis on humanities, to reach a scientific definition and clearer understanding about the Macau identity and Macau model, to get a deeper knowledge about the interaction between Chinese and Latin cultures. Post-graduate studies on the subject should be encouraged. Interflow between scholars from East and West on the subject through symposiums and workshops should be promoted. Stronger coordination is needed between different research institutes inside and outside Macau, to make a better use of limited resources to produce more effective results. The results of these studies could be of some positive contribution to the world, in terms of promoting harmony, mutual respect and mutual tolerance, as well as learning from each other on equal footing. It could go a long way towards disaproving Samuel Huntington’s prediction of the inevitable “clash of civilizations” between East and West in the 21st century,10 especially after the September 11 event and the war in Iraq. The results of these studies should be coupled with the implementation of civic education programs directed at the younger generation and the population at large, especially among the new immigrants,11 to increase their knowledge about Macau, as a part of China but different from China. Without this sense of belonging, often neglected in the education program of the previous government, it would be difficult to maintain and defend Macau’s identity. The hardware of our cultural identity could easily be seen in the form of our cultural relics, both oriental and occidental, from temples, churches, monuments, old residential and commercial buildings, lanes, squares, parks, cemeteries, etc. which have been carefully classified, protected and restored by the previous government, preventing our old town from becoming a jungle of concrete like in Hong Kong. Of course this job has to be continued after the handover through a better city planning and through the care of UNESCO by listing Macau’s relics into world cultural heritage, which could hopefully be officially approved in the year 2005. The heritage also includes the huge treasure of archives, documentation and books, both public and private, dating from the 16th century, kept intact for researchers. This huge treasure in architecture and records, provides rich resources to develop cultural tourism, which does not only rely upon the existing casinos and gaming facilities, but also allow us to create unique cultural theme parks, like a Las Vegas at a smaller scale with East-West cultural interflow as its main theme, to attract tourists from the West to see traditional Chinese culture, and tourists from the East to see a rich variety of Latin culture, different from the American (Disney Land ) culture in neighboring Hong Kong. This strategy will change Macau’s position from a shadow of Hong Kong to a dragon head of tourism in the Pearl River Delta, and maintaining its uniqueness in tourism in the Asia Pacific Region. With additional facilities like the Cultural Center, the Macau Tower, the Fisherman Wharf12, etc., and with the realization of the commitments from the new gaming license holders within the next decade, Macau could also become a center for international meetings, performances and exhibitions, for recreation, retirement and health care, as an alternative to the more expensive and hectic life in Hong Kong. ORIENTEOCIDENTE 10
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Improvement in the “hardware” ( especially infrastructures like railway and freeway linked to the rest of China, and improving deep-sea port facilities ) has to be accompanied by improvement in the “software”. The priority is streamlining the administrative structure and procedures, getting rid of red tape, inefficiency and corruption, left over from the previous government. This process of reform should be done with caution, by not throwing away the baby with the dirty water in the bath tub. There are some tendencies out of a narrow mind and naivety, to put all the blame on Portuguese language and culture. People of this kind try to boycott the use of Portuguese as an official language after the handover.1 3 They prefer English over Portuguese. They do not understand that the Portuguese language is indispensable to maintain the political and legal culture of Macau, just as English is necessary in Hong Kong to maintain the rule of law, which is the cornerstone of the “one country two systems” formula. Although, after the handover, Portuguese would automatically switch from its previous position as principal official language to a more secondary role, there is no way to curtail and abolish its use. Many legal documents are still written in Portuguese, although some of them have been translated into Chinese, often with errors and quality not so understandable for the Chinese readers. There is still a strong need to maintain the bilingual nature in the present administrative and judicial system, in order to prevent their deterioration. There is also a strong need to encourage people to learn and improve their knowledge of Portuguese,13 by utilizing and improving the existing institutions, as well as maintaining the Portuguese School itself. Even in local Chinese high schools, Portuguese should become an elective foreign language, next to English, in order to broaden the pool for training multi-lingual interpreters, and opening a chance for secondary school graduates to enter Portuguese/Latin speaking universities.
3. MACAU – AN IDEAL BRIDGE FOR CHINA’S STRONGER LINKS WITH THE LATIN WORLD As described in the first part of this article, China has two “windows” or free ports — Hong Kong and Macau — always open to the outside world since 1949, when the PRC was blockaded by the West, and later when Deng Xiaoping started to open up the country for foreign investment and trade. Even after China joined the WTO, these two SARs of the PRC, will still play the role of a bridge, a role which other Chinese cities cannot play, depending on how their identities and competitiveness could be further developed. Hong Kong has developed into an international city, a financial, trading and communication center in the Far East. But Macau, in spite of its quick growth in the last 2 decades into a modern metropolis, remains underdeveloped and still far from being an international city. HK has richer resources, a strong Anglo-Saxon identity, good infrastructure and efficient rule of law, which has been used by the West and Japan as an important gateway into China, and will remain the freest economy of the world, as long as the “second system”, especially its rule of law remain intact, stopping it from being eroded by the “first system”. But Macau, with more limited resources and more fragile “second system”, will take much longer time in restructuring and EASTWEST 11
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diversifying its economy.15 Moreover, its much smaller percentage and dwindling of its European and Latin community,16 has limited its expansion of overseas links. No wonder that quite a few people at the eve of Macau’s handover, still remained doubtful whether Macau could continue to play the role of a bridge. A group of European experts, the so called Eminent Persons Group ( EPG ), made a fact finding trip to Macau and China in 1998-99, and came to the conclusion that Macau could indeed play the role of one of the bridges between China and Europe. Although the Macau bridge is still fragile and have to be consolidated and to increase the traffic flow from both direction, many proposals has been forwarded in the EPG’s report to the European Commission in Brussels, which accepted the main contents of the report, and issued a communication “The European Union and Macau: Beyond 2000”,17 outlining EU’s policies towards Macau, stressing Macau’s “vital role as a bridge between Asia and Europe”, notably in the areas of : 1) democracy, human rights and individual freedoms; 2) economy and trade, including WTO; 3) culture, as a regional hub for training and exchange. From China’s side, there is also a will to strengthen and broaden Macau’s role as a second bridge next to Hong Kong, towards countries and regions that belong to the Latin speaking community, as Macau has the common language, law and culture that could facilitate the communication with the Latin speaking community in 3 continents—Europe, America and Africa, comprising 1/6 of the world population. As a matter of fact, Macau is the only place in China, and next to East Timor in the Asia Pacific region, that has a Latin language ( Portuguese) as an official language. The former French Indo-China and the former Spanish Philippines are much weaker in the cultural sense, compared to Macau. It is completely in line with China’s international multi-polar strategy to increase its ties with Europe and the rest of the Latin speaking world, in order to achieve a balance with the US and the AngloSaxon world. Stronger ties between the EU, China and Mercosul, could change the world balance of power, in favour of a more balanced trade and stronger means to safeguard world peace. This is where Macau could play a modest but ever growing intermediary role. Macau, as a second bridge, should not duplicate what HK is doing. Instead, it should base itself on its own cultural identity and extend itself along the traditional links with continental Europe, especially Latin Europe and the rest of the Latin speaking countries, which all have very little links with China in terms of trade and culture, because of the language barrier.18 Macau should therefore take advantage of its own identity, and focus on the following efforts: 1) Concentrating on European/Latin studies and training, such as : a) ORIENTEOCIDENTE 12
Languages – Portuguese/Latin languages as well as other European languages for Asian students, especially Chinese students, as well as
Gary M. C. Ngai
Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) for foreign students, especially those coming from Latin speaking countries; translation techniques from Chinese into different Latin languages and vice versa; comparative cultural studies between Chinese and European/Latin cultures. b)
Law — European continental law (not just Portuguese law) and comparative law studies between European and Chinese laws for students coming from the region to promote the rule of law, and to study the experiences in regional coordination and integration.
c)
Public administration – not only to meet the needs of Macau but also for the region, in their efforts of administrative modernization (to develop a transparent, efficient and accountable public administration), in close cooperation with institutes in Europe.
f)
Tourism – not only for local needs (modernizing and upgrading the gaming industry), but also for regional needs in developing cultural tourism, by training qualified tour guides, managers and professionals in the tourist industry.
g) Business administration – comparative studies of different models, especially Chinese and European models, with special emphasis on information and consultancy. To attain this goal, it is necessary to carry out reform in the existing public and private institutions of higher learning in Macau, to coordinate their resources in a better way, to achieve higher standards of quality to meet local and regional needs, and to strengthen their ties with institutions abroad, especially with Europe and the Latin speaking countries, promoting all kinds of regional exchange programs. 2) To build Macau into a facilitator of inter-regional business activities In the accelerated globalization process, we have to focus on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which constitute the majority of businesses in China, Macau and elsewhere in the world. Unlike the big companies, they need assistance, facilitators or catalysts to evade greater risks, to lower transaction costs, to get better access to credit, and to get a better know how of the markets and different business cultures. It is exactly in this field that Macau can play its role as a facilitator, taking advantage of its identity as a low cost multicultural territory, complementary to HK, to attract more investors and visitors. The EU-Macau Agreement on Trade and Cooperation, signed in 1992 and going beyond 1999, is a multifaceted agreement covering investment, trade, information, science and technology, financial service, telecommunication, statistics, seminars and training, etc., an important tool in developing EUMacau relations and developing Macau’s intermediary role between Europe and China. The existing Macau trade links with over 100 countries and regions, EASTWEST 13
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and Macau’s participation in 120 international and regional organizations and agreements ( including the WTO ), are also important as a basis for further developing Macau’s external links.. The wide overseas human network as a result of the Chinese and Macanese diaspora from Macau during the last 2 centuries, could be utilized to build up the bridge. More than 100,000 Macau residents, including Chinese and Macanese, are Portuguese passport holders with right of abode in the EU and with easy access to other countries of the Latin world. This is a great asset still unexplored. China’s relation with Latin America is nowadays still underdeveloped, due to the distance, the language barrier and the lack of mutual understanding. But with the fast progress of information technology, distance is no longer an obstacle. The distance could be shortened, the gap could be narrowed, either through direct contacts as provided by the modern IT, or indirectly through traditional links with Europe, especially Portugal and Spain. And even taking advantage of the South-South connection to increase contacts with South America by using Australia as a Springboard. Here is where Macau could come in as a “middleman”, providing good quality services in training, translations and consultants in general orientation, law and business. Among the Portuguese speaking countries, Brazil is the most influential one, with close economic relations to China. Brazil is China’s largest trading partner in Latin America, and China is Brazil’s second trading partner next to the US. In 1999 Brazil and China jointly launched an earth satellite, setting a positive example for hi-tech cooperation between developing countries. The two countries are exploring possibilities of establishing a free trade agreement, which could be extended to all the Mercosul countries in the future. The free port status of Macau could be used as a facilitator. East Timor is China’s closest Portuguese speaking “neighbour” in the region, which gives Macau the advantage of channeling China’s aid to the reconstruction of this war ridden country, in close cooperation with Portugal, Brazil and Australia. It is quite encouraging to note, that in October 2003, with strong support from Beijing, the Macau SAR had successfully held its first business conference, to be followed by more regular conferrences of its kind in the future, between China and the Portuguese speaking countries of the world, using Macau as a platform of service, to promote two-way trade and investment between these two large markets of the world, with huge potentialities still unexplored. This is the first actual step towards strengthening Macau’s role as a special bridge between China and the Latin speaking community of the world.
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4. CONCLUSION In short, the preservation and development of Macau’s cultural identity, especially its Latinity, is not only crucial for implementing the “one country two systems” formula, but also important to maintain and strengthen its ties with the vast Latin world, to play the role of an intermediary to bring the 2 great civilizations of the world – Chinese and Latin – closer together. A tiny place like Macau can play a big role if it is placed in the hands of people with vision and determination. In order to fulfill this role, we need support not only from the local community, but also from the people and leaders in China, Europe and the rest of the Latin world, in order to improve and promote itself. Macau has survived for over 4 centuries, braving many storms and hurricanes, with the flexibility of a bamboo, that would not easily break. With this flexibility and tolerance, we hope to survive and develop, to turn our dreams into reality, to turn the unpolished piece of diamond into a glittering jewel of the Orient, although it might take several generations to achieve. When there is a will, there is a way.
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NOTES 1
Macau started from a tiny peninsula of 2.5km2 in the 16th century, added by two islands Taipa and Coloane in the 19th century, making it up to over 25 km2 nowadays, after continuous reclamation since the beginning of the 20th century. Hong Kong is 50 times bigger than Macau.
2. Geoffrey C. Gunn: Encountering Macau, p.28. 3. When the Portuguese first settled in Macau, they did not bring their own women, but slaves from Africa, India and Malacca, whom they encountered along their route to the East. The earliest generation of Macanese were descendants from these intermarriages, followed by those with the Japanese, and only later with the Chinese. Traditionally, most Macanese would have a Portuguesee name, be baptized in the Catholic church, receive a Portuguese education from the father’s side, but speak Chinese as their mother tongue and adopt a lot of Chinese customs. Their language called Patua, adopted many words from Malay, Indian, African and Cantonese, and has a different grammar compared to the original Portuguese on which it was based. During the last decades, an increasing number of local Chinese men married Portuguese women. 4. There are around 40,000 overseas Chinese stranded in Macau, comprising one tenth of the local population.. They originated from Indo-China, Burma, Indonesia, Moçamique, Madagascar, Peru and other regions, where revolutions and anti-Chinese upheavals forced them to leave the country. They still keep their overseas connections and many of them still maintain passports of their country of origin. The 2nd or 3rd generation again migrated to the US, Canada, Australia or Europe. 5. The Portuguese revolution in 1974 started the decolonialization process, in which Macau ceased to be an overseas province of Portugal, and declared to be a Chinese territory under Portuguese administration, A mini constution, the Organic Law of Macau was adopted to give the local residents, first the Macanese and later the Chinese, the right to vote directly and indirectly the majority of delegates to the local Legislative Assembly. It also extended provisons on human rights as inscribed in the new Portuguese Constitution to Macau. During the drafting of the Macau Basic Law in the early 1990s, the UN Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Coveneant on Civil and Political Rights and core labour standards set out in the relevant ILO conventions have been adopted in article 40 of the Macau Basic Law. 6
The Macau Model has been elaborated in Professor K.C.Fok’s dissertation in the University of Hawaii 1978, entitled “The Macau Formula” translated and published in Portuguese by Gradiva, Lisbon, in the 1990s. In the Chinese terminology, we may call Macau the first special economic and cultural zone of China open to the West since the 16th century..
7
As a result of a violent clash between the local Chinese community and the Portuguese authorities during the “1.2.3 ( 3 December ) incident in 1966, in the mid of the Cultural Revolution, the Portuguese government in Macau was forced to capitulate , and since then degenerated into a “lame duck” government, dictated by the “shadow government”, the underground communit party that came to power under strong Maoist doctrines, calling themselves “leftists” and calling Macau a “half liberated area”. The influence of the “leftists” are overwhelmingly strong, as they still control the majority of the civic organizations, the chamber of commerce, the media, etc., without being challenged by the “rightists” ( nationalists) opposition, which has long been ousted from the territory after the incident.
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8
Zhuhai is a Special Economic Zone of China, bordering Macau and channeling investment from Macau and Hong Kong to get started from scratch in the early ‘80s, recording an industrial growth of almost 40% per annum and an annual increase of 21% for foreign investment in first decade of its existence. Its area has expanded 50 times more and its population 2 times more compared to Macau. It has engaged in a sort of vicious competition with Macau by building its own airport, motor racing track, universities, etc. and trying to overtake Macau within a short time.
9
Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, the president of the Preparatory Committtee of the Macau SAR, stressed several times the necessity to preserve Macau’s cultural uniqueness, in his speeches during his visits to Macau before the handover
10 Samuel Huntington is a Harvard Professor who wrote a book in the ‘90s, predicting a “clash of civilizations” between East and West, or between Christianity and Confucian-Islamic alliance. 11 According to the official census in 1997, the total population of Macau was 422,000, among which 96% are ethnic Chinese. More than 50% of them migrated from mainland China to Macau less than 15 years, mainly after Deng Xiaoping reopened the door for mainlanders to settle in Macau. The old residents mainly came from Guangdong and Fujian provinces. 12. The Macau Cultural Center was completed before the handover in 1999 at a cost of 1 billion HK dollars.with modern facilities for performing arts and exhibitions. The Macau Tower, located in the newly reclaimed area of Nam Van Lakes, with a height of 338 meters, the 10th highest towers in the world, equipped with a revolving restaurant, indoor and outdoor observation desks and broadcasting levels at the top, was completeded in 2001. It has an entertainment center, a conference center and a theater. The Fisherman Wharf is a theme park for family entertainment to be completed in 2005. 13. The Macau Basic Law (article 9) stipulates that Portuguese is also an official language, next to Chinese, after the handover. 14. Due to the lack of promotion in teaching Portuguese to the local Chinese by the previous government, only 3% among the local population can speak Portuguese, and mainly concentrated in the public service. This 3%, no matter how small, is still a great asset for Macau and for China. 15. The Macau economy started to slow down in the 1990s, even before the Asian financial crisis commenced. The migration of labour intensive industries to mainland China caused a continuous drop in manufacturing. Macau’s GDP recorded a minus growth from 1996 till 1999 and gradually picking up after the handover, maintaining a steady growth in the gaming sector, which in 2002 split the franchise into 3 license holders. The economy is still heavily relying upon the tourist and gaming industry (almost 50% of the GDP and over 70% of public revenues). 16. Compared to Hong Kong, the European Community in Macau remains small (not more than 4,000), and even smaller since so many Portuguese left the territory after the handover. However, the EU is still the third biggest investor in Macau, after mainland China and Hong Kong.( the last two occupy over 90% of foreign direct investment ). Portugal is by far the EASTWEST 17
MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
most active EU investor in Macau ( 27 firms ), followed by France ( 5 ), the United Kingdom ( 4 ) and Germany ( 2 ). The new gaming investors from Las Vegas are expanding the American community, However, the communities from Brazil, Peru, East Timor, Mocabique and other Latin countries, are on the decline. 17. This communication, published before Macau’s handover in 1999, constitutes the platform for EU’s policies towards Macau, submitted by the Euopean Commission to the European Council and European Parliament. It is an important document, showing the EU’s commitment in helping Macau to implement the Portugal-China Joint Declaration and the Macau Basic Law, securing a prosperous and stable future after the handover. 18. Trade with and investment from Latin speaking countries remain at a low level of around 8% and 2% out of the total foreign trade and foreign investment in China., allowing a huge space for improvement.
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Gary M. C. Ngai
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Gary Ngai : Social and Cultural Pluralism in Macau – its impact on the transitional period ( Dec. 1990, “Administração” no.10 ) Gary Ngai: Relations between East and West seen from Macau ( May 1992, “Administração” no, 15 ) Gary Ngai: On Bilingualism in the Administration ( May 1994, “Administração” no.23 ) Gary Ngai: Macau – a special bridge between China and the Latin World ( June 1996, “Administração” no.32 ) Gary Ngai: Macau’s Cultural Identity – its preservation and development before and after 1999 ( March 1997, “Administração” no.35 ) Gary Ngai: Em Defesa da Latinidade ( “O Mundo em Português”, Lisbon, December 1999 )
Note: “Administração” is a quarterly journal issued by the Macau Government in Portuguese and Chinese.
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MACAU AN IDEAL BASE TO DEVELOP SINO-LATIN TIES
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