While people in Hong Kong have been demonstrating for months, it remains in Macau, the other Chinese special administrative zone, quiet. This could also be due to different colonial histories.
Views of the Grand Lisboa Casino and the Macau Tower
For the past five months, the people in Hong Kong demonstrate in the meantime, for more democracy. What began as a mass protest against a umstrittenenes law on Extradition, has become a movement, which campaigns for independence from the Chinese government in Beijing, against police violence and for the resignation of Hong Kong chief Secretary Carrie Lam. The civilian, in Parts violent disobedience of the Hong Kong special administrative region has become a challenge for China and the principle of “One country, two systems”.
Macau: A Showcase Of Beijing
Only an hour by ferry from Hong Kong, the former colony of Macau is located. Here is felt by the rebellion of the neighbors have nothing to. The semi-Autonomous Macau is connected to mainland China by the world’s largest pleasure pier in the world. Often the city is referred to as Beijing’s better-behaved special administrative zone, because so far, none of the Hong Kong protests spilled here ever come across. Many questions could be Macau showpiece of the Beijing government, while its neighbour is a Symbol of the resistance.
“Most of the people in Macau do not stand behind the protesters, but the Hong Kong government,” says Kin-Sun Chan, assistant Professor of administrative law at the University of Macau, DW. Given the huge differences it is difficult to compare the two special administrative regions directly to each other, so-Chan. “The economic situations of Macau and Hong Kong are very different. Macau is very much smaller. Therefore, Macau is also much more dependent on mainland China.”
Majority of the Macauer feel as a Chinese
And then also the inhabitants there would be: While in Hong Kong, almost 7.5 million people live in Macau, just 623.000. And: most of them were born in mainland China, in Hong Kong there are only about 20 percent. “The majority of the Macauer considered themselves as Chinese, and has a strong connection to China,” said Kin-Sun Chan of the University of Macau.
Compared with the economic development of Hong Kong Macau is also only a Mikroöknomoie and in need of support from China, so Chan. Even if Macau’s Per-capita income is the fourth highest in the world – and is thus larger than that in Hong Kong, its economic power, but much smaller. So Macau is dependent for its economic Survival, for example, tourists from the mainland. In 2018, 70 percent of the visitors came from China.
Known as the Las Vegas of Asia, makes Macau, its many Casinos tidy cash – 50 per cent of the budget revenues come from the gambling. Hong Kong, a financial hub in Asia, focuses more on his business relations with the West.
Historical Differences
The Moment of the return of Macao to China in 1999
Also in terms of their history, the two Chinese special administrative zones are different. Hong Kong was colonized more than 150 years ago by the British to China in 1997, returned. Macau since 1557, under Portuguese rule, and was returned in 1999, solemnly to China. Both colonial powers have left their mark – not only in the legal and civil structures of society, but also in the ideological and cultural identity of the people. For a long time, the Hong Kong had, for example, not only has no relation to Beijing, they felt the mainland Chinese to consider. This was the result of Eurocentrism and Western Propaganda that came with the British rule, said Yuk-Lin Wong, a Professor at the University of York.
Under the British colonial power in Hong Kong and new or changes in faith, and rankings introduced. Gradually, the Hong Kong accepted first of all, the liberalism, the case-law and, later, the freedom of expression. In Macau, the Portuguese had difficulties to keep control of the government. They left China’s Communist party before returning to Beijing in Share have a say. Actually, Macau was already 33 years prior to his colonial independence under Chinese leadership.
Gang-fighting in the Casino
For restlessness and Chaos of the time made during the colonial both in Hong Kong and in Macau Mafia groups, known as triads. In Macau, the fights led to rival Gangs in the Casinos to economic loss and violence. With the withdrawal of the two special administrative zones of China, the triads were distributed. Many Macauer considered the Intervention of Beijing as a restoration of social order and financial stability. And so, until today there is little Protest in Macau against the Chinese mainland. 2014 people went against a pension act on the road, in the same year, some tried to have a referendum against the re-election of head of government, Fernando Chui Sai-On to enforce. The police brought the fast to an end.
A look at one of the many Casinos of Macau
The neighbors in the Hong Kong demonstration are much more joyful. At the latest since the successful protests against the introduction of the Subject “National education” in 2012 that may have to be the Hong Kong to understand how effective the mobilization of the masses. Why it works here but not in Macau? Kin-Sun Chan of the University of Macau believes that it is up to the legal order of the financial metropolis, which is developed in relation to the civil society and the rule of law more than those of Macau. The people in Hong Kong knew that they could rely on during a Demonstration on a certain order and a law, and certainly could feel, as Chan. These conditions would make the Protest against an authoritarian government more likely.
Associations to exert pressure
In Macau, however, there are besides many associations also such a thing as “influential neighborhoods”, in which mainly members of the Pro-Beijing-life of the Elite. Many groups, such as the “Macau economic Union” and the “Community society Jiangmen” have seats in the Council of the city. While such groups made it successfully on many channels, lobbying for disadvantaged groups, would you exercise on the other hand, the pressure, the assistant Professor Chan.
As the authorities in Macau to the protests in neighboring Hong Kong, was only the beginning of the month significantly. As the security officer of the city, announced that meetings of groups of students, holding placards with statements of solidarity for the Hong Kong protests is high, could be considered illegal. In August, the police had canceled a solidarity event for Hong Kong and seven people taken into custody.
“It is still too early to say whether Hong Kong has failed, and Macau to be a success,” says Kent Deng, Professor of economic history at the London School of Economics of the DW. “We should give two to five years. Then we can say for sure.”