MACAO PEKING’S SUFFERANCE SPARES PORTUGAL’S COLONY IN CHINA ;

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31256, 31 December 1966, Page 10

MACAO PEKING’S SUFFERANCE SPARES PORTUGAL’S COLONY IN CHINA ;

(By MARCELLE POIRIER in the "Yorkshire Post ") (Reprinted by arrangement.) r The recent riots in the Portuguese province of Macao, a tiny pimple on the coast of mainland China, have turned a spotlight on the colony’s anomalous position. Macao, founded in 1557, is the oldest European settlement in China. It was one of the main gateways for trade with China and Japan and if it continues to exist it is because it is still a valuable trading post for China. Through Macao, China each year garners £l5 million which with the £2OO million which comes from trade through Hong Kong is half of all the foreign currency China can lay her hands on. ‘

The riots may be one of two] things. They may have been] a Chinese-inspired warning to the new Governor of the province that China is actively present in his colony and to emphasise that Macao exists only because it suits China’s book. On the other hand, it might simply have been an outburst of excessive zeal inspired by Red Guard tactics, for which a minor clash between the police and Chinese Left-wing labourers on the Portuguese island of Taipa served as pretext. The first of the demonstrations in Macao were indeed modelled on Red Guard tactics, with quotations from Mao being chanted with the usual fervour. But because of its financial importance it does not seem likely that China intends invading Macao. In any case her influence is already present in the province. Tiny Territory Macao is a tiny peninsula 31 miles square linked to the mainland by an isthmus which is scarcely wider than the road to China which crosses it. At the Macao end of the isthmus is a triumphal arch, the Porta de Cerco, or Barrier Gate. During the day lorries carrying goods from China rumble under the arch. Occasionally peasants will push their wares into Macao for sale in the market, but these, of course, leave their families behind as hostages against desertion. Macao Chinese with permits can also cross into China to visit relatives.

Each night at 7 p.m., however, China closes and bolts her door. A big green metal gate is swung across—the symbol that China is still the forbidden land. Tourists are taken to look at the gate from a respectful 100 yards and warned that the Chinese guards fire at the sight of a camera'.

China cannot be forgotten in Macao. Whichever way one looks out to sea, China is in sight. From the observatory or from the ruins of St. Paul’s the mainland of China is separated from Macao by only 500 yards of water. Down the middle of this channel are Chinese gunboats like a dotted line marking the frontier. Junks from Macao and mainland China glide down the channel to fish in the same waters, but in order to

do so unmolested the Macao fishermen have to pay a tax to the Chinese Government—a percentage of the catch. On the other side of the peninsula, not far from the Barrier, China is even closer. At one point the Red Guards are no more than 70 yards from the Macao bank, leaning idly against a pill box. I wondered what they had made of Macao’s Grand Prix motor race, which brought tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens to the province, creating plenty of -noise. China Ever-present China is present in many other ways. The “Ao Men Jin Pao” (the “Daily of the People of Macao”) is a Communist paper printed in the province and the Chinese Communist Party in Peking has its shop window in the main street, with photographs of the happy citizens of People’s China working in factories or on farms with identical smiles of undiluted happiness. More important is that fact that 12,000 children, one-third of the school population, are given the same education as children in Peking. The rest attend schools run by Franciscans and Jesuits. Just as the Portuguese of Macao are represented in the Lisbon Parliament by Mr Pacheco Jorge, the Chinese are represented in the People’s Political Consultative Council in Peking by Mr Ho Hyn, President of the Chamber of Commerce and an important member of the Gold Syndicate in the province.

The Gold Syndicate, which deals with the large quantities of gold imported into Macao, a free port, and the gambling syndicate, which owns the five huge casinos which attract 1,000,000 Chinese from Hong Kong each year, maintain friendly relations with both the Communists and the Portuguese authorities.

On Macao’s 3i square miles 300,000 people live, 95 per cent of them Chinese. Many live huddled in the most

primitive shanty towns or be- ' neath tiny windbreaks clinging to a terraced hillside from which the occupants try to wring a living. There are few middle-class Chinese like those who live in Hong Kong. Refugees By River

Every month about 300 refugees make their way into the province. Many float down the Pearl river by night from Canton, hiding in the rushes and rice paddies during the day. Those who arrive in Macao are only about a third of those who try. Some are shot as they swim the river.

These refugees are helped by Christian missions in Macao, and also in some cases by the charities of the Macao Communists. The average monthly income for a family in Macao is £lO. The low reclaimed land which fringes the hilly peninsula is transformed into small market gardens but the majority of the province’s rice, vegetables and meat come from Red China. The shops of Macao are also full of cheap, but well-made, clothing from the mainland Macao is dependent on China in a way in which Hong Kong is not. Macao depends on China not only for its water as Hong Kong does, but also for most of its food and clothing. Macao’s shallow harbour cannot take big ships and there is no airport. Tourists wanting to visit Macao have to take hydrofoils from Hong Kong, competing for places with the Chinese who travel daily and en masse at the week-ends to go to the casinos or greyhound dog races introduced by Australians a few years ago. Most picturesque of the Macao gambling palaces is a flve-storey floating one with a pagoda roof. Here there are hundreds of ways to lose money. The bouncers are said to be ex-pirates who used to levy tolls on junks in the China Sea.

The Grand Prix racing drivers can go round Macao in three minutes and it does not take much longer by cab. Tourists, however, prefer pedicabs which amble gently through the narrow Chinese village streets to places of interest such as the house from which Sun Yat-sen, the father of the Chinese Republic (revered by both Taiwan and Peking left to overthrow the imperial regime). Place Of Contrast Macao is a place of contrast. There is contrast between the way of life on the peninsula and that in People’s China, contrast between the lovely Portuguese style houses in confectionery colours pistachio, strawberry cream, and butter cream—and Chinese village streets with their open-doored houses. There is contrast between the traditional Chinese temple (where one can pray for luck and gamble with marked joss sticks) and the Christian churches of all denominations. There is contrast between the wealth of the syndicate members and a few Europeans and the poverty of the masses. Macao retains an old-worid charm because it has no tall buildings and no modern shop fronts. The shops facing on to streets under pillared arcades are open fronted. There is one jeweller’s shop to every three other shops so visitors to Macao must spend a lot on gold. But the real stocks of gold are smuggled out to countries all over the world where unstable currency Inspires distrust It is said that discs of gold with a hole near the top can be bought for smuggling pur-' poses. These are then strung round the waist under the clothing. It is true that gold is not imported into Macao each year just for fun but as it would have to be smuggled out through Hong Kong, where controls are strict, or into China, the gold mystery remains an intriguing one.

The Government of the Portuguese Far East territory of Macao bowed to Chinese pressure and accepted a list of demands presented by Left-wingers during recent riots; the Portuguese have now agreed to negotiate future relations with the Chinese. Marcelle Poirier recently visited the colony.