Macau has largely insulated itself from the protests that have roiled sister city Hong Kong all summer, and the Chinese casino enclave’s new chief executive aims to keep it that way.
Businessman and former Legislative Assembly President Ho Iat Seng, Beijing’s hand-picked candidate to succeed Fernando Chui Sai On as Macau’s third chief executive, was promptly elected without opposition on Sunday by a 400-member pro-Beijing electoral committee of the territory’s commercial and community elites.
He formally takes office in December to serve the first of two possible five-year terms. His inauguration will coincide with celebrations commemorating the 20th anniversary of Chinese rule and a planned visit by Chinese President and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.
“Many people expressed they do not want to mess up Macau,” the 62-year-old Ho said in a Reuters report citing comments in the local media, adding that he’s heard much opposition locally to the protests that have plunged Hong Kong into its worst political crisis since its return to China in 1997.
Ho, who enjoys strong ties to the Communist government on the mainland and was a long-time member of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, is expected to bring Macau tighter into Beijing’s political orbit while making sure in the immediate term that the city continues to distance itself from the unrest in Hong Kong 40 miles away.
This includes heading off any displays of public sympathy for the demonstrators who have contested the streets of the populous Asian financial center in weeks of often-violent clashes with police.
Reuters said dozens of Macau police officers were deployed last Monday to the city’s Senado Square to shut down a demonstration that had been planned to decry what activists describe as the excessive use of force by Hong Kong’s police. Thirty people were “investigated,” the news agency said.
This has pleased Beijing, which likes to hold up Macau as the model for the “one-country, two systems” approach it has applied to the two former European colonies since they reverted to Chinese sovereignty.
Reuters cited state media reports last week that favorably compared the relative docility of Macau’s populace with the unruliness of Hong Kong’s.
“Why are Macau people so excellent? It comes to the importance of education,” the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily stated online.
Other comments were similar in tone.
“Positive life is meaningful,” posted one mainland citizen. “Macau doesn’t want to respond to Hong Kong. Don’t prevent Macau people from making money. You are not welcome to revolt here.”
At the same time, Ho is said to be cognizant of the potential for problems if Macau appears to be relinquishing too much of its autonomy too soon and has cautioned against rushing through controversial legislation supporting propagandized “national education” and a proposed public investment scheme.
Meanwhile, the city’s pro-democracy activists, who tend to mirror the younger demographics leading Hong Kong’s protests, say the city has an unrepresentative political system and have called on the international community to support democratization.
An open letter from a group of anonymous locals was published last week demanding universal suffrage and an end to Beijing’s efforts to impose increasingly authoritarian rule.
“The time to fight for our universal rights is now, before Macau becomes just another Chinese city,” the letter said. “The eyes of the world are on Hong Kong right now. But please also take a look at its next door neighbor.”
