I have been asked by a raft of journalists, scholars and analysts over the past few weeks to summarise in just a few words my assessment of the first 25 years of the existence of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) – and my standard answer has been “beyond all expectations”.
And that’s, as someone who visited Macau for the first time in 1980, when it was still under Portuguese rule, covered the historic ceremony of December 19-20, 1999 that marked China’s resumption of exercising its sovereignty over the territory, and will cover this week’s 25th Anniversary celebrations of the establishment of the MSAR and inspection tour by President Xi Jinping, what I sincerely believe, based on my personal experience in and knowledge of Macau over nearly half a century.
First of all, Macau’s phenomenal growth in its gross domestic product and per capita GDP has been beyond all expectations – not only mine but everyone I know – as no-one predicted, as far as I know, in late 1999 that Macau’s GDP would grow that much and its per capita GDP would figure among the highest in the world within just a few decades after its change from Portuguese to Chinese rule. But that’s what happened. It’s real!
GDP at current prices rose by almost 580 percent, according to figures available on the website of the Macau Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC), from 54.369 billion patacas in 2000, i.e., the first full year of the existence of the MSAR, to 369,328 billion patacas last year. Per capita GDP grew from 126,271 patacas in 2000 to 544,530 patacas (US$67,529; according to DSEC data) in 2023, up by 331 percent.
Some international consultancies and media outlets have forecast that Macau’s per capita GDP is set to reach the top of the per-capita GDP world ranking in no time, or even that it has reached it already, competing with Luxembourg and Singapore for the number-one position. As a realist, I prefer to wait for official figures such as those from the IMF to confirm which economy takes gold.
Anyhow, having worked its way up to, for instance, the top five on the per capita GDP world ranking in just a quarter of a century is worth accolades.
But, of course, it’s not just Macau’s economy that has produced extraordinary results since 1999. It’s, the whole package. The SAR has also made considerable progress on the social welfare, public administration, public housing, education (from kindergarten to university level) and public health fronts, alongside an overall modernisation and, last but not least, digitalisation drive – such as virtually every resident’s Macao One Account that has made life much more convenient – and convenience is something that locals seem to appreciate more than everything else, apart from public security and political stability.
Public security has been a fait accompli since Macau’s return to the motherland. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a plain fact. I guess that the sheer presence of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison here has scared the socks off the gangsters.
Alas, Macau was affected by gangland violence in the 1990s that threatened its image as a safe tourist destination and coincided with an economic downturn in the second half of the final decade of Portuguese rule. However, as someone who covered all this, I think it’s important to point out that Macau’s crime wave on the fringes of the gaming industry and a string of economic issues such as a huge housing glut at that time did not affect the city’s political transition period that formally began after the signing of the China-Portugal Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau in Beijing in April 1987 and gathered speed with the promulgation of the Basic Law of the MSAR of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in March 1993. Compared with Hong Kong, Macau’s transfer from Portuguese to Chinese rule was markedly smooth.
Contrary to what I have been reading in the media over the past few decades, what occurred – with dignity – on December 19-20, 1999 was not that Portugal “handed over” its sovereignty over Macau to China but that the latter “resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Macau” in order to establish the MSAR and in line with Article 2 (1) of the Joint Declaration, which at midnight on December 19, 1999 fulfilled its mission to tackle a question left over from history and, consequently, ceased to be an “active” document. Of course, it is an important historic arrangement signed by two states in their joint determination to solve a bilateral matter between them in a peaceful and dignified way. That’s what happened – and what counts now, on a daily basis, is the strictly adhere to the spirit and wording of the Basic Law.
I may add that Portugal made the right choice soon after its anti-colonialist Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974 by unilaterally relinquishing all claims of sovereignty over its so-called “overseas provinces” and changing Macau’s status into a territory under Portuguese administration. The understanding was, when both sides signed an agreement in Paris in 1979 to establish diplomatic relations that Macau was a Chinese territory under temporary Portuguese administration. Reality in their bilateral relationship finally took the upper hand and, ultimately, smoothed the way for launching the Sino-Portuguese talks on Macau’s return to Chinese rule in 1986.
Annex I to the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration, amounts to an “elaboration” by the Chinese government of its “basic policies regarding Macau”. Article I of Annex I states that Macau’s future Basic Law, after the establishment of the MSAR, will ensure that “the socialist system and socialist policies shall not be practised and that [Macau’s] existing social and economic systems and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years”.
Article I is the legal foundation of the “One Country, Two Systems” formula, which is imminently political. Without “One Country, Two Systems”, which also applies to Hong Kong and, let’s hope, to Taiwan in the not-too-distant future, Macau’s politico-economic success over the past 25 years would, most probably, never have been achieved. “One Country, Two Systems” was a political masterstroke initiated in the early 1980s by the nation’s then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who, regrettably, was unable to witness Hong Kong’s return on July 1, 1997 from British to Chinese rule as he passed away on February 19, 1997, aged 92. I was covering the visit of Portugal’s president at that time, Jorge Sampaio, to Macau. I remember that he was visibly shaken by the sad news.
While the December 19-20, 1999 events – Macau’s most significant since it gradually became an entrepot for commercial and cultural exchanges after the mid-16th century – “only” happened a quarter of a century ago, I do feel, both as a long-time resident and journalist who “was there” covering them, that they happened a “very long time” ago. I think the point is that since then so many things have happened here, mostly for the better, such as its phenomenal economic growth, modernisation drive, administrative reforms that resulted in a much more people-orientated approach than before 1999, the setting up of Forum Macao as a platform for economic, commercial and even cultural relations between China and Portuguese-speaking countries that has brought together 10 countries with a combined population of over 1.6 billion people, or one-fifth of the world’s population, the setting-up of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) and the establishment of the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, as well as the government’s “talent acquisition” import scheme. Macau’s ongoing incorporation into the GBA, including the cooperation zone in Hengqin, entail both opportunities and challenges for Macau that, in my view, need time to be “digested” by the local residents.
In any case, Macau’s return to the motherland happened at the end of the last century when it was high time for the situation of Westerners ruling territories in what then was still known as the Third World to draw to a close. Incidentally, the United States returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999. Incredibly, there are, however, still quite a number of territories in what is now known as the Global South that continue to be ruled by Western countries.
And then there was the three-year impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Macau, which affected all of us, both as individuals and as businesspeople. The three years weren’t a walk in the park but, in all fairness, outgoing Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng and his team deserve praise for having been able to keep the nasty virus largely at bay, as much as was humanly feasible, also because of the close cooperation between local and central government officials on the public health front.
Macau’s 25 years of progress, patriotism and prosperity (the three Ps – a catchy and meaningful front-page headline by the latest issue of Macao magazine) have benefited a great deal from the strong support by the central authorities, not only in Beijing but also their representatives in Macau – the Liaison Office and Foreign Ministry Commission, since 2012/2013 when Xi Jinping assumed the post of general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the position of president and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). In his capacity as head of state, Xi paid inspection visits to the MSAR in 2014 and 2019, and he is scheduled to arrive in Macau for his third such visit on Wednesday. During his stay he will also swear in the next government under Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai, who in the past few weeks has repeatedly reaffirmed the significance of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle, national security and people-focused policies.
On the home front, Sam will have his work cut out for him. While there are no political issues at stake, and patriotism is an accomplished fact here, there are, nevertheless, quite a few bread-and-butter issues that need to be tackled in the next few years as they affect residents and even tourists, such as the traffic and public transport conundrum. I also think that social welfare for our senior citizens, most of whom have long and often hard working lives behind them, deserve better care, while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which form the bedrock of the local economy, in terms of employment numbers in particular, but are suffering from a range of challenges, such as the still lingering aftermath of the economic impact caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and rapidly changing consumption patterns by locals and visitors alike, will have to rely on the government’s special attention for years to come.
That’s why Macau’s new policy secretaries for Economy and Finance, Tai Kin Ip, and Transport and Public Works, Raymond Tam Vai Man, will have a lot on their plates, which doesn’t mean, evidently, that their three colleagues won’t have tough assignments ahead of them either, such as reducing surgery waiting times, further streamlining bureaucratic procedures and, equally important, ensuring that Macau’s public and national security arrangements will continue to be upgraded and the discipline of our police forces will be further strengthened.
Anyhow, I wish Sam and his team of principal officials and advisors the best of success.
On Friday, I expect Macau will enter another quarter-of-a-century period of growth, modernisation and GBA integration. I am convinced that many more such 25-year periods lie ahead of Macau, perhaps by merely amending Article 5 of the Basic Law, which in its current version states that “the socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the MSAR, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain for 50 years,” or by altering Macau’s status, such as by becoming an autonomous region or special municipality. Any such change would have to be passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC). Well, I am sure that Macau will always be a “special” place in China – a history-laden fact that benefits not just our little city but also the great Chinese nation as a whole – one of the world’s giants in terms of population, size, economic and political clout, and arts and culture.
– Harald Brüning
