中文导读
台风“天鸽”袭击澳门，满目狼藉之中，人民解放军出动救灾，受到了澳门人民的欢迎。澳门在从葡萄牙回归中国之后，经过多年的发展，经济水平有了很大的提高，对中国共产党的领导的认同度也在不断提升。
Unlike the residents of Hong Kong, few in the former Portuguese colony demand greater democracy.
FOR residents of Macau, a former Portuguese colony that is now an autonomous region of China, Typhoon Hato was striking not just for the damage it did, but for the help that came in its wake. After the storm pounded the territory in late August, Chinese troops emerged from their barracks to help with relief work. It was the army’s first deployment on the streets of the territory since the end of Portuguese rule in 1999. Strikingly, the soldiers’ presence was cheered.
In nearby Hong Kong, to which Macau is due to be linked by a long bridge next year, Chinese troops have not been called out to help the local authorities since Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997. Suspicions of the Chinese army run deep. Annual commemorations of its crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 attract thousands.
Not so in Macau, where critics of China have been far less vocal, and opposition to the local government has also been more muted. Pro-government candidates are expected to do well in elections for the local assembly on September 17th, despite the authorities’ apparent haplessness in the face of Hato, which flooded the old town and cut power to much of the territory.
The day after Hato hit, Macau’s chief executive, Fernando Chui, apologised, admitting his government had been ill-prepared. He also announced the resignation of the head of the meteorological department who, in the eyes of many locals, was too slow to issue a warning. Nonetheless, many pro-government candidates have been quizzed by angry residents about the authorities’ response to the typhoon, and some have criticised the government themselves. One candidate, Ron Lam, has gathered 10,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the former weather chief be investigated for dereliction of duty. An opposition candidate, Sulu Sou, accuses Mr Chui of failing to plan adequately and invest enough in flood defences.
It is unlikely that voters’ discontent will result in big electoral gains for the government’s critics, however. Pro-government legislators hold 29 of the assembly’s 33 seats. The system is rigged in their favour. Twelve of the seats go to labour unions and other interest groups, which can be relied upon to support the government. The chief executive appoints the occupants of another seven. That leaves only 14 to be filled by direct elections. Yet even in these, the opposition won less than a quarter of the vote at the previous election, in 2013. In Hong Kong, in contrast, pro-democracy candidates won over half the vote in the seats in the local assembly filled by direct elections in 2016.
Among the few politicians in Macau who criticise the Chinese government is Au Kam San, a legislator. He is one of about 180 people competing for seats in the upcoming elections. Mr Au posted a message on his Facebook account questioning the role of Chinese soldiers after the storm: he dismissed them as mere rubbish collectors. But pro-Communist sentiment is so strong in Macau that Mr Au himself admits that his comments may have hurt his chances of re-election.
The party’s sway over the territory’s politics long predates the end of Portuguese rule. It gained strength in the 1960s when the Cultural Revolution spilled over from the mainland, triggering pro-Communist riots. Similar unrest erupted in Hong Kong, but the British authorities curbed it far more effectively. In Macau, the party became entrenched; its influence spread throughout civil society. Unlike Hong Kong, the territory never became a haven for Chinese fleeing communism. Its 600,000 people—one-twelfth the number of Hong Kongers—were more receptive to the party’s control.
In contrast with Hong Kong, to which China promised the eventual introduction of “universal suffrage” in elections for the territory’s leadership, Macau received no such pledge. Few people appear to mind much. Pro-China patriotism is drilled into residents at school and by news media that are largely pro-party. Even the territory’s largest pro-democracy group, the New Macau Association, avoids criticising the Communists too loudly.
The government keeps residents in line with a stick and a carrot. The carrot is a “wealth-partaking scheme”, an annual handout of 9,000 patacas ($1,100) for every permanent resident. The government can afford this thanks to Macau’s transformation, in the space of a generation, from post-industrial backwater to the world’s largest gambling centre. Its GDP per person rose from 121,363 patacas in 1999 to 554,619 in 2016, among the highest in the world and 68% more than that of Hong Kong.
The stick is a national-security law, which was introduced in 2009. In Hong Kong, huge protests in 2003 forced the government to shelve its plans for a similar bill (it remains hesitant about introducing one). There was little such fuss in Macau. Its government has not yet prosecuted anyone under the law and continues to tolerate criticism of the authorities. But democrats in Macau say fear of the law causes people to censor themselves. The government often bars activists from Hong Kong from entering the territory, for fear they might foment unrest.
Despite the territory’s high wages and plentiful jobs, many in Macau, especially the young, grumble about the cost of buying a home, a shortage of social housing, poor public transport and overcrowded hospitals. They moan about a lack of parking spaces and a huge influx of tourists from mainland China who, they say, are changing the quiet, laid-back character of the territory for the worse. As long as discontent remains muted, however, the rulers on the mainland will be content.
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Sept 16th, 2017 | China | 934 words
