Hou Jianguo, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Secretary of the Party’s Leadership Group, and Zhu Weidong, Deputy Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, came to Macau to promote the “Spirit of the Two Sessions”: they summarized the “successes” of the latest Five-Year Plan and the goals that follow. The list of national — and Party — pride is extensive; but three priorities were highlighted for Macau: technology, openness and talent. It is not new, it makes perfect sense; but the Macao SAR, nationalist in body and soul, rejects the spirit of a hybrid city, a bridge to the world, and a future which has long taken hold in China.
If Macau listened to Beijing’s messages, its residency policy would be different; so would its investment profile and its contribution to the Greater Bay Area. Openness, openness, openness… Hou Jianguo and Zhu Weidong repeated it several times, specifying increasing levels of access to the Chinese market and investment attraction, with messages aimed at Macau: cooperation with Guangdong in technological modernization, attraction of Portuguese-speaking talent…
They are talking to the wall—unless higher powers order otherwise. Cooperation with Guangdong faces the Gordian knot of Hengqin, where Guangzhou wants to run the show—and collect taxes—while requiring Macau to invest; local elites want the rent-seeking lobbies they had here to be installed there; foreign investment wants a tax regime and legislation identical to Macau’s. Many elephants in the room… If Beijing truly wants Hengqin to work, it must give the Macao SAR real authority, while also putting an end to the local childishness of saying yes to everything while delivering nothing.
And there is that massive wall that only falls with an axe: the Executive and Legislative powers unite in bureaucrat-phobia, failing to understand that attracting investment and know-how creates wealth and jobs. It is not about being against the Portuguese; it is about being against mainlanders, better educated, better connected, worldly, and open-minded. Out of fear of competition, everything is resisted for as long as possible. If it were ethnic prejudice, at least they would allow the Chinese students who come here to study Portuguese to stay — instead, they are shown the door as soon as they graduate.
Not everything that comes from Beijing is rosy; and the collapse of autonomy — partly due to Macau’s own responsibility — should be reconsidered, because autonomy serves both China and the Macau SAR, bringing it closer to the world. But Beijing also sends what makes sense and is necessary — much of what the entire world expects from China, and Macau pretends to want. It is not with this spirit that the path is illuminated.
*Director-General of PLATAFORMA
