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All is not Well in Macau
Real estate news By Asia Sentinel
03 October 2007
Recent demonstrations underscore discontent with the cocktail of sleaze, vice and corruption that propel Macau’s economy The former Portuguese enclave of Macau has long been almost as notorious for the corruption of some government officials as for its gambling and sex industries. But mass public protest is relatively new. Worse for both the government of Chief Executive Edmund Ho and his masters in Beijing, the protests occurred on National Day, October 1.
These demonstrations followed one on May 1 when some 5,000 rallied against the illegal import of workers from the mainland, which are depressing local wages. The demonstrations turned violent, police used pepper spray and one policeman fired his pistol, injuring a demonstrator. Numerous arrests were made. Events in fast-growing Macau offer salutary lessons for Hong Kong, where some of the same potential discontent is evident as a result of widening income gaps and collusion between big business protected by Beijing and government officials.
The protests themselves, involving some 4,000 people, were fuelled by various gripes but they were the latest of several reminders on the related issues of corruption and dynastic politics in Macau. For years Beijing has relied on a small group of so-called patriotic businessmen who have been the most important figures in Macau at least since the 1967 Cultural Revolution, when the Portuguese were forced to kowtow to the mainland, despite remaining nominal rulers – and beneficiaries of corruption until 1999. Although Edmund Ho’s government has kept a tight grip on Macau politics since the handover to China, the inhabitants have, if anything, been keener than ever to practice some of the freedoms of assembly and the press left to them by the departing Portuguese. For the past three years or so, Macau has been experiencing an almost unprecedented economic boom which for the first time has pushed its per capita GDP above that of Hong Kong.
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