Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of China. It consists of the Macau Peninsula, the islands of Taipa and Coloane, the Cotai reclamation zone between Taipa and Coloane, and several smaller islets. It borders Zhuhai to the north and west, and it lies west of Hong Kong, separated by the Pearl River estuary. With a population of about 720,000 people and a land area of 32.9 square kilometres (12.7 sq mi), it is the most densely populated region in the world.
Formerly a Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal by the Ming dynasty as a trading post in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887, when Portugal gained perpetual colonial rights with the signing of the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until the 1999 handover to China. Macau is a special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems". The unique blend of Portuguese, French, English, Italian, and Chinese architecture in the city's downtown area has resulted in its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
Macau is famous and globally recognised for its casinos, known by the gambling industry as the gambling capital of the world. It is also one of the most visited cities in the world. The gambling industry of Macau is around seven times larger than that of Las Vegas, Nevada. As a result, the city has one of the highest GDPs per capita and GDPs per capita by purchasing power parity in the world.
Macau has a very high Human Development Index of 0.934, as calculated by the Government of Macau, and has the third-highest life expectancy in the world. The territory is highly urbanised, holding the status of the most densely populated territory on Earth; two-thirds of the region's total area is built on land reclaimed from the sea.
Etymology
The first known written record of the name Macau, rendered as A Ma Gang (亞/阿-媽/馬-港), is found in a letter dated 20 November 1555. The local inhabitants believed that the sea goddess Matsu (alternatively called A-Ma) had blessed and protected the harbour and referred to the waters around A-Ma Temple by her name. When Portuguese explorers first arrived in the area and asked for the place name, the locals thought they were asking about the temple and told them it was Ma Kok (媽閣). The earliest Portuguese spelling for this was Amaquão. Multiple variations were used until Amacão / Amacao and Macão / Macao became common during the 17th century.
The 1911 reform of Portuguese orthography standardised the spelling as Macau; however, the use of Macao persisted in English and other European languages.
The Macau Peninsula had many names in Chinese, including 井澳 (zeng2 ou3) 鏡澳 (geng3 ou3), 濠鏡 (hou4 geng3), and 濠鏡澳 (hou4 geng3 ou3). The islands Taipa, Coloane, and Hengqin were collectively called 十字門 (sap6 zi6 mun4). These names would later become 澳門 (ou3 mun4) 'bay gate' or 'port gate', Mandarin: Àomén), referring to the whole territory.
History
During the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), the region was under the jurisdiction of Panyu County, Nanhai Commandery. The region is first known to have been settled during the Han dynasty. It was administratively part of Dongguan Prefecture in the Jin dynasty (266–420 AD), and alternated under the control of Nanhai and Dongguan in later dynasties. In 1152, during the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), it was under the jurisdiction of the new Xiangshan County. In 1277, approximately 50,000 refugees fleeing the Mongol conquest of China settled in the coastal area.
The first European visitor to reach China by sea was the explorer Jorge Álvares, who arrived in 1513. Merchants first established a trading post in Hong Kong waters at Tamão, present-day Tuen Mun, beginning regular trade with nearby settlements in southern China. Military clashes between the Ming and Portuguese navies followed the expulsion of the Tamão traders in 1521. Despite the trade ban, Portuguese merchants continued to attempt to settle on other parts of the Pearl River estuary, finally settling on Macau.
In their first attempts at obtaining trading posts by force, the Portuguese were defeated by the Ming Chinese at the Battle of Tamão in 1521, where the Portuguese lost two ships. They were also defeated at the Battle of Sincouwaan around Lantau Island, where the Portuguese lost two more ships. Other defeats include Shuangyu in 1548, where several Portuguese were captured, and near Dongshan County in 1549, where two Portuguese junks and Galeote Pereira were captured.
The Portuguese later returned to China peacefully and presented themselves under the name Portuguese instead of Franks in the Luso-Chinese agreement (1554). They rented Macau as a trading post from China by paying an annual lease of hundreds of silver taels to Ming China. Luso-Canton trade relations were formally reestablished in 1554, and Portugal soon after acquired a permanent lease for Macau in 1557, agreeing to pay 500 taels of silver as annual land rent.
Macau became a stopover on the sea lane that connected Japan with the wider world. The Portuguese could avoid the Pearl River and inched towards Quanzhou and Ningbo. But as they failed to establish trading relationships with the Chinese, the Portuguese focused on trade with Japan. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau was created in 1576. By 1583, the Municipal Council of Macau had been established to handle municipal affairs for the growing settlement. Macau was at the peak of its prosperity as a major warehouse during the late 16th century, providing a crucial connection in exporting Chinese silk to Japan during the Nanban trade period.
Although the Portuguese were initially prohibited from fortifying Macau or stockpiling weapons, the Fortaleza do Monte was constructed in response to frequent Dutch naval incursions. The Dutch attempted to take the city in the 1622 Battle of Macau, but were repelled successfully by the Portuguese. Macau entered a period of decline in the 1640s following a series of catastrophic events for the burgeoning colony: Portuguese access to trade routes was irreparably severed when Japan halted trade in 1639, and after the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640, Portuguese Malacca fell to the Dutch in 1641.
Maritime trade with China was banned in 1644 following the Qing conquest under the Haijin policies. It was limited only to Macau on a lesser scale while the new dynasty focused on eliminating surviving Ming loyalists. While the Kangxi Emperor lifted the prohibition in 1684, China again restricted trade decades later under the Canton System in 1757. Foreign ships were required to stop first at Macau before further proceeding to Canton. Qing authorities exercised a much greater role in governing the territory during this period; Chinese residents were subject to Qing courts, and new construction had to be approved by the resident mandarin beginning in the 1740s. As the opium trade became more lucrative during the 18th century, Macau again became an important stopping point en route to China.
Following the First Opium War and the establishment of Hong Kong by the British, Macau lost its role as a major port. Firecracker and incense production, as well as tea and tobacco processing, were vital industries in the colony during this time. Portugal was able to capitalise on China's postwar weakness and assert its sovereignty; the Governor of Macau began refusing to pay China annual land rent for the colony in the 1840s, and annexed Taipa and Coloane, in 1851 and 1864, respectively. Portugal also occupied nearby Lapa and Montanha. But these were returned to China by 1887, when perpetual occupation rights over Macau were formalised in the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. This agreement also prohibited Portugal from ceding Macau without Chinese approval. Despite occasional conflict between Cantonese authorities and the colonial government, Macau's status remained unchanged through the republican revolutions of both Portugal in 1910 and China in 1911. The Kuomintang further affirmed Portuguese jurisdiction in Macau when the Treaty of Peking was renegotiated in 1928.
During the Second World War, the Empire of Japan did not occupy the colony and generally respected Portuguese neutrality in Macau. However, after Japanese troops captured a British cargo ship in Macau waters in 1943, Japan installed a group of government "advisors" as an alternative to military occupation. The territory largely avoided military action during the war except in 1945, when the United States ordered air raids on Macau after learning that the colonial government was preparing to sell aviation fuel to Japan. In 1950, the United States paid Portugal more than US$20 million in compensation for the damage during the war.
Refugees from mainland China swelled the population as they fled from the Chinese Civil War. Access to a large workforce enabled Macau's economy to grow as the colony expanded its clothing and textiles manufacturing industry, developed its tourism industry, and legalised casino gaming. However, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, residents dissatisfied with the colonial administration rioted in the 1966 12-3 incident, in which 8 people were killed, and more than 200 were injured. Portugal lost full control over the colony afterward, and agreed to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for continued administration of Macau.
Following the 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal formally relinquished Macau as an overseas province and acknowledged it as a "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration". After China first concluded arrangements on Hong Kong's future with the United Kingdom, it entered negotiations with Portugal over Macau in 1986.
These concluded with the signing of the 1987 Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau, in which Portugal agreed to the handover of the colony in 1999 and China guaranteed Macau's political and economic systems for 50 years after the handover. In the waning years of colonial rule, Macau rapidly urbanised and constructed large-scale infrastructure projects, including the Macau International Airport and a new container port. The handover of Macau was at midnight on 20 December 1999, after 442 years of Portuguese rule.
Following the handover, Macau liberalised its casino industry (which previously operated under a government-licensed monopoly) and allowed foreign investors, starting a new period of economic development. The regional economy grew by a double-digit annual growth rate from 2002 to 2014, making Macau one of the richest economies in the world on a per capita basis. Political debates have centred on the region's jurisdictional independence and the central government's adherence to "one country, two systems". While issues such as national security legislation have been controversial, Macau residents generally have high levels of trust in the government. Kwong and Wong explain this by comparing Macau to Hong Kong: "The case of Macau shows that the very small size of a 'microstate' helps central authorities to exercise political control, stifle political pluralism, and monopolize opinions, all of which strengthen regime persistence."
Government and politics
Macau is a special administrative region of China, with executive, legislative, and judicial powers devolved from the national government. The Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration provided for economic and administrative continuity through the handover, resulting in an executive-led governing system largely inherited from the territory's history as a Portuguese colony. Under these terms and the "one country, two systems" principle, the Basic Law of Macao is the regional constitution. Because negotiations for the Joint Declaration and Basic Law began after transitional arrangements for Hong Kong were made, Macau's structure of government is very similar to Hong Kong's.
The regional government is composed of three branches:
- Executive: The Chief Executive is responsible for enforcing regional law, can force reconsideration of legislation, and appoints Executive Council members, a portion of the legislature, and principal officials. Acting with the Executive Council, the Chief Executive can propose new bills, issue subordinate legislation, and has authority to dissolve the legislature.
- Legislature: The unicameral Legislative Assembly enacts regional law, approves budgets, and has the power to impeach a sitting Chief Executive.
- Judiciary: The Court of Final Appeal and lower courts, whose judges are appointed by the Chief Executive on the advice of a recommendation commission, interpret laws and overturn those inconsistent with the Basic Law.
The Chief Executive is the head of government, and serves for a maximum of two five-year terms. The State Council (led by the Premier of China) appoints the Chief Executive after nomination by the Election Committee, which is composed of 400 business, community, and government leaders.
The Legislative Assembly has 33 members, each serving a four-year term: 14 are directly elected, 12 indirectly elected, and 7 appointed by the Chief Executive. Indirectly elected assemblymembers are selected from limited electorates representing sectors of the economy or special interest groups. All directly elected members are chosen with proportional representation.
Twelve political parties had representatives elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 2017 election. These parties have aligned themselves into two ideological groups: the pro-establishment (the current government) and pro-democracy camps. Macau is represented in the National People's Congress by 12 deputies chosen through an electoral college, and 29 delegates in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference appointed by the central government.