Kapok: Macao in a Kiangwu cup

Anybody and everybody knows the Kiang Wu Hospital in Macao. Not for its ugly architecture that scars the whole area behind the façade of Saint Paul, but rather as one of the old and most respected institutions of the SAR.

The hospital started its operations in 1871 by providing Chinese medicine only, and opened its first Western medicine section in 1892 thanks to a brilliant fresh graduate from Hong Kong, Dr Sun Yat-Sen, who later on became a great revolutionary, the theoretician of The Three Principles of the People and the father of the Republic of China. But this is not the only patronage the hospital acknowledges. Of less international repute, Ke Lin, who had been trained at the Canton Pok Tsai Hospital, started teaching at Kiang Wu Hospital and in its nursing school back in the 1930s. He later became the first Dean of the hospital. Not only was Master Ke a great medical educator, but he was also known for being one of the master spies of the Chinese Communist Party based in Macao, even becoming the one responsible for the Party’s Macao affairs during the Second Chinese Civil War of 1945-49. Ke Lin’s brother was none other than Ke Zhengping, the founder of the Nam Kwong Trading Company representing the Communist regime interests in the Portuguese colony. The Nam Kwong branched out in the 1980s as the Xinhua News Agency Macao Branch and is still everywhere to be seen today in Macao as the Nam Kwong Group.

As many institutions in Macao that started catering for the Chinese population, a not-for-profit association exercises oversight over the operations of the whole organization. Originally, the rationale was for important Chinese businessmen to be on the board to run things professionally as well as contribute financially to the smooth operation of the enterprise. One of the best examples of such a venture is the Tung Sin Tong that started operating in 1892 and still provides financial help and medicine for the poor, free education and free child care for the socially disadvantaged, and support for necessitous elderly. The association is headed today by a triumvirate made of the brother of the Chief Executive, Chui Sai Cheong, the cousin of the Chief Executive, Chui Sai Peng, and the sister of the Chief Executive-elect, Ho Teng Iat.

Given its pedigree, the Kiang Wu Hospital Charitable Association was thus bound to push the limits of a get-together of powerful benefactors to the brink of absurdity. The Chairmen for life are none other than Edmund Ho, the first Chief Executive of the SAR, Ma You-li, the son of the great patriot Ma Man-kei, and Stanley Ho, the king of gambling who just retired as chairman of SJM Holdings. Second only to these, the Chief Executive-elect himself, Ho Iat Seng, appears as the Honorary Chairman for life.

Should we then be surprised to learn that out of MOP531.3 million in financial support provided by the Health Bureau from January to September, some 86.5 per cent have been channeled to the Kiang Wu Charitable Association? In the official gazette published at the end of October, one could also read that the Association had received in July some MOP$32.5 million from the Macau Foundation, on top of the MOP$25 million received earlier in the year.
The problem with this ever-growing financing of Kiang Wu is that the money is coming from the public coffers, and thus a privately-run business is being heavily subsidized by the government in order to supplement public institutions. And who decides on that? The same people who sit on the Executive Council, the Macau Foundation board and the boards of the beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the waiting-time at the emergencies at Conde de São Januário hospital worsens.

Published in Macau Daily Times, November 8, 2019.

Kapok: Who does what?

The publication of the yearly report of the Legislative Assembly always provides an interesting snapshot of politics in Macao and a better understanding, albeit limited in depth, of who does what and why.

The report in itself has been trimmed this year — 38 pages for the 2018/19 session versus 48 pages for the previous one — and really pales when compared to the document issued by the Hong Kong Legislative Council — 175 pages in the latest file available in our sister SAR.

Moreover, starting in 2014/15 with the first report put together under the efficient-minded presidency of Ho Iat Seng, these reports have shied away from making any comparison with previous sessions when examining the number of laws passed.

Up to 2014, a simple graphic with a timeline would serve as a benchmarking for the current session: that year, only 9 laws had been passed, against 15 in 2012/13, and a multi-year bar chart reminded the casual reader that the most active legislative session ever had been the 2008/09 one, with a record 27 laws adopted. That session corresponded with the last year of Edmund Ho as Chief Executive: the vast majority of the bills are introduced by the government in Macao, and thus the idea was clearly to start with a clean slate for the next government after years of backlogging.

The year 2018/19 is no exception — although I had to go back to previous reports to establish that fact — as a total of 25 laws were adopted last year (almost on par with Hong Kong!), making it the most active legislative session of the Chui Sai On era. Almost three times more laws passed than in the least active year — only 9 laws approved in 2015/16. But Mr Chui should not feel mortified as only 6 laws were ratified in the very troubled session of 2006/07 at the time of Edmund Ho — the year of the downfall of Ao Man Long and the largest May Day protest.

Clearing the way for the upcoming Ho Iat Seng era was therefore the priority, and that was done quite efficiently: 28 laws were introduced in 2018/19, and 25 passed, that is a successful ratio of 89%… quite an improvement on the 48% of 2017/18! Yet, when one looks carefully, a good third of the 25 laws adopted are actually amendments of existing laws, even though, again, that is an improvement on the previous session when half the laws were mere revisions.

The report also provides insight into the commitment of individual legislators to their job. Again, there was a time when independent associations in Macao would survey the citizens regarding the performance of their legislators. There was also a time when a website — http://almacau.net/ — would feed us with extremely detailed information about each and every lawmaker, allowing us to connect the way they voted with their political stance and vested interests in society. But these times have been gone for years and we are left with an ever-shrinking and rather unsurprising report.

The least active legislators in raising questions to the government are the ones appointed by the CE or small-time businessmen-turned-politicians with dubious background and limited abilities, such as Cheung Lup Kwan and Chan Chak Mo, who spent the whole year formulating exactly ZERO oral or written interpellation addressed to the government. Cheung Lup Kwan together with President Ho Iat Seng, who resigned in July and was too busy preparing for his solo candidacy to the CE position, are the two legislators with the worst attendance for plenary meetings: respectively 35 and 34 recorded attendances out of 52 meetings altogether! Mr Cheung, who has been the least committed legislator ever since he was first elected in 2001, pushed the contempt for the function to a new height this year by showing up only ONCE in 65 meetings of the third permanent commission of the Assembly, despite that commission examining eleven laws!

Self-induced ignorance and inaction can indeed be rewarding!

Published in Macau Daily Times on September 27, 2019

Kapok: The art of irrelevance

Let’s be honest, mumbling half-hearted speeches full of empty promises year after year borders on art. More so when you happen to be an accidental leader with absolutely no talent for public encounters. Even more so when you know that nobody will really pay attention, that this will be your last policy address and that you will never be held accountable for anything. There is a Samuel Beckett-esque dimension to it, like “Waiting for Godot” in politics: it is absurd and surreal at the same time, and yet it impacts people’s lives, and it even allows human beings to die under your watch because you have been standing by instead of acting.

The absence of human empathy in the whole exercise is truly striking. Last year when Typhoon Hato had just devastated the city and killed 10 people less than three months before, the 2018 policy address started with the exhilarating words: “In accordance with the Basic Law…” (this is also true in Chinese). But clearly, last year’s circumstances were not to be blamed as the 2016 incipit was even worse — “In accordance with Article 65 of the Basic Law of Macao…” Mind you, this was not always the case. Back in March 2010, Chief Executive (CE)  Chui Sai On’s first-ever policy address started with the words “Spring is in the air…” 春暖花開，萬物欣欣向榮之際. Should we always have policy addresses delivered in early spring then?

Irony aside, something was broken between the CE and the citizens along the way, something that we can date back to the early months of Chui’s second term. The attempt at mending things now appears crude when compared to the first entry on Chui’s brand new blog posted in May 2015 and the latest one pinned two weeks ago in mid-October: we went from “Serene and calm, he wisely observes the course of the world” to “Integrating into the Greater Bay and initiating a new development”! A failed poetic attempt will always be better than repetitive gobbledygook. Chui did hit rock-bottom popularity in December 2017 when, for the first time ever, a CE’s approval rating went below the symbolic 50% line. This could thus explain the attempt at humbleness, despite the absolute dullness of the phrasing: we went from “Development Plan in Progress for Building a Perfect Home” (the official translation!) in November 2016 to “Be pragmatic yet enterprising, and share the fruits of development” in November 2017.

What will really be at stake on Nov. 15 and in the following days has not much to do with either the title or the substance of the address. We now have a five-year plan and its yearly rate of execution will certainly be close to the one announced last year — 80 percent or more! Then, the whole first part of the address will consist of sweeteners, among which the wealth partaking scheme will play an essential role. Actually, given that Chui’s reputation will never be salvaged and that he will soon be gone, I would suggest that now is the perfect time to suppress what was introduced by Edmund Ho in 2008: the wealth partaking scheme, from a purely rational point of view, is both inefficient and unfair.

No, what will really matter in two weeks’ time is the positioning of the political heavyweights for next year’s (s)election. If tradition prevails, Ho Iat Seng will be given the nod and criticisms directed at the government will be loud and persistent. If capacity — who is credited for taking the right steps in preventing another disaster when Typhoon Mangkhut blasted the city in September? — and political rectitude triumph, Secretary Wong Sio Chak will have the upper hand, and patriotic family politics, along with incompetence will be severely and durably crippled.

And if there should be no room for the king’s jester to maneuver— Secretary Tam — let’s recall that accidents do happen in Macao, with or without depressive subjects!

Published in Macau Daily Times on November 2, 2018

Kapok: Reconciling the irreconcilable

Maybe it was mere slip of the tongue. Maybe it was simply a manner of speaking. Or maybe it was truly what was meant. Yet, when the Chief Executive seemed to imply in his out of the cuff response to an unscheduled question addressed by legislator Ng Kuok Cheong that Macao had been “imposed” the mutual recognition of driving licenses between the mainland and the SAR in order to satisfy the grand plan of regional integration defined by the central authorities, it caused indeed more confusion than relief.

After all, legislator Ng was bringing up the matter because of a widespread public concern that this would indeed affect traffic very adversely, bearing in mind that this mutual recognition had been originally pitched by the government as a way to facilitate things for Macao citizens. Even though this is not antagonistic, it does suggest a logical discrepancy that has far-reaching consequences as to what presides over the design of a public policy: either you initiate or you obey, and then for whose benefit?

Beyond what it reveals once more of this Chief Executive — his clear inability to argue for what is supposed to be his own policies when he cannot mumble a written document — this mishap might prove to be useful in the end as it will allow to open a debate on the adequacy of such a  highly debatable scheme. The very same day, suspended legislator Sulu Sou was staging an event outside of the Assembly contesting the validity of the already proclaimed government dispatch regarding the mutual recognition, as both the haste of the proclamation and the lack of justification(s) for it seemed to clearly indicate that “a bigger power” — to use Sulu’s wording — was at play.

This is all the more saddening that the government, and Mr Chui in particular, are in the midst of trying to sell the latest fad for an ever-bright and prosperous Macao beyond gaming: the development of the Greater Bay area! It is no secret that the vision to integrate further the urban continuum between Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing, Hong Kong and Macao was the centrepiece of the discussions for Macao’s representatives who attended the “two meetings” in Beijing in March. It was especially true for the twelve Macao representatives at the National People’s Congress, including four (Ho Iat Seng, Kou Hoi In, José Chui Sai Peng and Si Ka Lon) who are concurrently members of the Macao Legislative Assembly.

So, when I read that “many lawmakers expressed doubts regarding the influence and relevance of the Greater Bay Area plan”, I can perceive a sense of irony in the journalist’s report, especially as Kou Hoi In himself took the lead in rhetorically raising some questions. The Chief Executive’s exposé had been — to remain polite — dreary: “promote infrastructure connectivity”, “enhance the level of market integration”, “build a global technology and innovation hub”, “build a modern system of industries through coordinated development”, “build jointly a quality urban environment”, “cultivate greater strength in international cooperation”, and “support the establishment of major cooperation platforms”.

Over the past month, pro-establishment legislators have been all over the place in trying to illustrate, sometimes very creatively, what the Greater Bay Area could entail: such is the case of Si Ka Lon who is now suggesting the creation of a sea reserve for international tourism, or Zheng Anting (Jiangmen belongs to the network of eleven cities) who would like the scheme to facilitate the relocation of aging citizens on the mainland. In the Chinese press of Macao, it is no less than 1,155 articles that focused or dealt with the “Greater Bay Area” since mid-March: no wonder then that the Chief Executive appeared to be obsessed with an ever-increasing integration of Macao in the Pearl River Delta!

But how, when and for whose benefit? In the questions addressed to Mr Chui, there was absolutely no mention of Hengqin and its ongoing development. Yet, the island was the subject of 150 press articles in Chinese over the same past month: beyond the slogans, reality bites!

Published in Macau Daily Times on April 20, 2018

Kapok: Apologies warranted

New Year greetings is a must for a politician and even more so for a statesman: it provides the perfect occasion to reflect on past deeds and put achievements as well as setbacks in a different light, when one is not only judged on his action but also on his capacity to reflect upon his action; it corresponds also to a new beginning, a form of rejuvenation stemming from the course one is capable to draw for the future, with clarity of mind and rigor of assessment, striking a fine balance between what is desirable and what is feasible. Ultimately, this is an opportune time to mend fractures, heal wounds and bring the community together, especially because it also corresponds to a time of rejoicing, even though Christmas in our part of the world tends to be overly concerned with its highly consumerist side. But in Macao we are lucky: handover day falls on December 20th, and so everything is about values and virtues, with handover celebration speeches extending their long shadow over the final two weeks of the year.

As it is often the case in Chinese, Mr Chui Sai On chose an adage in four characters — two times four actually — to title his New Year wishes: “bai zhe bu nao, ying nan er shang,” (百折不撓 迎難而上) that can roughly be translated by “being undaunted by repeated setbacks and meeting the challenges head-on.” It conveys the virtues of perseverance, and the capacity to surmount any kind of adversity. No doubt that this is fitting after the disaster brought about by the devastating typhoon Hato in August that claimed 10 lives, maimed more than 240 others and caused more than 11 billion in physical damage. Mr Chui makes no ambiguity about it as he devotes a lengthy paragraph making up one-fifth of his greetings to the matter. To say what exactly?

First, that this was the worst typhoon since 1953 and that everybody had been taken by surprise as the community had grown complacent as it had not been confronted with such upheavals in the “relatively peaceful past decades.” Then, Mr Chui goes on in praising the remarkable traditional virtues displayed by the Macao people, especially the ones of “inclusiveness” and “mutual assistance”, overcoming the difficulties thanks to a remarkable sense of solidarity. Had Mr Chui stop there, I don’t think I would have even bothered writing this column: after all, the rest of the greetings is just one big exercise in stuffing as many slogans as possible — “one belt, one road”, five-year plan, “centre for tourism and leisure”, “economic and trade co-operation platform for China and Portuguese-speaking countries”, etc. And then, Mr Chui’s greetings appear in the  Chinese language “Macao Daily News” next to the ones of the director of the Liaison Office in Macao, on page 7, in which Zheng Xiaosong provides a long commentary on the vision provided by the just concluded 19th Party Congress in Beijing. No wonder then that Mr Chui would make five references to the “one country, two systems” formula whereas he mentions only once the “high degree of autonomy” in his short recitation.

Even the overemphasis on the element of surprise and the common (and yet wrong) understanding that one cannot anticipate the unexpected are not that shocking after all: one cannot blame Mr Chui for not having read Emile de Girardin whose words should serve as the incipit of any policy address — “To govern is to foresee” (Gouverner c’est prévoir).

But when one fails to anticipate, when one promises repeatedly to build adequate infrastructure to fight flooding and natural disasters and yet one fails to deliver and is thus indirectly responsible for the death of 10 people, what should one do at the very least? Apologize! Not a word asking for forgiveness in Mr Chui’s sermon. Is being indomitable grounded in a total lack of empathy and sympathy? Isn’t Mr Chui aware that he is running the most reviled government since 1999?

Published in Macau Daily Times on January 5, 2018

Kapok: Detrimental ignorance

The results of the latest yearly survey regarding the trust Macao people place in their government is truly appalling. Not only has Mr Chui Sai On never been so unpopular, but 2017 marks also the first time his approval rating has dipped below the highly symbolic 50% bar. A low(est) score of 49.5% might not seem much, and yet it also corresponds to the largest yearly drop since Mr Chui stepped into the shoes of Mr Edmund Ho: between 2016 and 2017, he lost more than 10 percentage points! In a territory in which people do not get to elect their enlightened leader and the menu is adorned with a unique dish when selection time comes, this is quite a feat: why one would bother when one has no choice?

In 2009, when it was still possible and meaningful to administer political surveys in a Macao-based university, our questionnaire on “civic culture” had actually revealed that far from being politically apathetic the good citizens of Macao simply felt disenfranchised — they had no power over things. Given the opportunity, they indicated that they would actually vouch for a radically different institutional design in order to become at long last the masters of their own destiny: 51% of the people interrogated believed that the best way to designate the Chief Executive (CE) was through universal suffrage, whereas only 14% were satisfied with the way it was, almost 28% thought that the electoral commission electing the CE should be expanded and a mere 7% trusted Beijing to designate their leader directly.

Thus, the 2017 survey indicating such a lamentable popular support for the CE does not come as a surprise, and becomes even more humiliating when hypothetical vote intentions are being gauged: if the CE was this year returned via universal suffrage, only 20% of the Macao citizens would vote for Mr Chui! Again, the worst result ever. And the list goes on: greatest ever overall dissatisfaction (since 1999 moreover!) with the Macao government as a whole (44.3%; for the first time satisfaction has plunged below dissatisfaction); greatest ever dissatisfaction with the capacity of the government to improve the people’s livelihood (53.2%); greatest ever dissatisfaction with the capacity of the government to push for democratic development (39.2%); greatest ever dissatisfaction in the capacity of the government to protect human rights and freedom (28.3%); highest ever distrust in the Macao government (31.2%); highest ever lack of confidence in Macao’s future (26%); and the final blow comes from the question addressing the “people’s satisfaction in the Macao government’s performance after the typhoon”: 54.3% are voicing out their dissatisfaction!

To be fair, a few indicators (a minority) indicate little change: people are still okay with the performance of the government in maintaining economic prosperity (can they really be credited for that?); they are still quite confident in the capacity of the government to handle the relation with Beijing, about the policies coming from up north affecting the SAR, about the “one country, two systems” formula, about China’s own future and even pretty trustful of the central government. But then, isn’t it weird to see this disjunction? Isn’t the CE pre-screened by Beijing prior to even thinking of filling the position and isn’t he appointed by the central government? And the same goes for the secretaries. Shouldn’t Beijing be worried that its loyal executants perform so badly? How long before the level of incompetence starts affecting the people’s perception of the benevolent intentions of the capital?

Now, all the blame seems to come from the catastrophic mishandling of the murderous crisis brought forth by a devastating typhoon. Is that for sure? Will the passing of time mend the gaping distrust thus created? For us to be certain, we would need to run such surveys in Macao (this one is done by the University of Hong Kong) on a monthly basis, to better understand the fluctuations. Interestingly enough, I personally applied for such a monthly endeavour back in 2014, only to be turned down by the Macao Foundation. Time for a change? But with which independent tertiary institution?

Published in Macau Daily Times on December 22, 2017

Kapok: Everything must change...

In The Leopard, the beautiful novel by Lampedusa set in slow-changing Sicily, Trancredi’s famous assertion that “everything must change for everything to remain the same” holds a particular truth for Macao, especially so when considering the latest urge by the Chief Executive’s family to widen its hold on power in the SAR.

When learning last week about the scheme to promote Mr Chui Sai Cheong, the Chief Executive’s brother, to the “elected” position of Vice President of the Legislative Assembly, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I had been under the impression that since May 2014, when 20,000 people took to the street against the extravagant preferential treatment senior officials were conferring to themselves, that some kind of attempt at greater adequacy between the people’s expectations and the priorities of the government — not only in speeches — would be the new normal in Macao.

One can easily perceive the lingering danger of deception: years of maladministration and substandard urban development coupled with the inept management of a tragedy that ultimately claimed 10 lives can in large part explain the remarkable results of the pan-democrats in the September 17th legislative elections. The New Macau Association-affiliated legislators made history by totalling more than 30,000 votes, and if José Pereira Coutinho and Agnes Lam are added, we are talking about a sizeable 55,000 votes and more than 40% of the elected seats. Moreover, the youngest ever elected legislator, 26-year old Sulu Sou, officially representing NMA, happens to have been the main organizer of the May 2014 protest!

Choosing a handful of academics as appointees could also be seen as a wise move on the part of the Chief Executive, and at the very least paying lip-service to the grand plan of “scientific policy-making”. Why then cast a shadow on the resolve to engage in “sunshine government”?

As reported in the press, there was quite a bit of lobbying in order to ensure the “election” of Chui Sai Cheong prior to the vote last Monday. In a way, this is reassuring as it seems to indicate that not everybody was convinced this was the best of options. If we leave aside the merits, the question of seniority does not hold as President Ho Iat Seng has himself been a member of the LA only since 2009, whereas the longest-serving legislator is Ng Kuok Cheong, a democrat. Then, if custom is to be considered, we now have two business-related legislators at the helm of the LA, a first since the handover as these two positions have traditionally been split between labour and business pro-establishment camps. But if reticences there were, they apparently cleared out over the weekend: Mr Chui Sai Cheong received 29 votes out of 33 during the first plenary session!

Clearly, this is not illegal for Mr Chui-the-brother to become Vice President of the LA, but this is not a matter of legality — although it should be if one considers that the independence of powers is enshrined in the Basic Law, or is it really? In case of absence of the President, the Vice President presides over meetings, decides on the dates and convenes special and emergency sessions: how would that look? And the argument of smallness of Macao does not hold, as smaller cities in the world manage to extend the circles of trust beyond the family bonds. Even the Kaczyński brothers — twins! — in Poland kept their act only on the side of the executive branch.

As we are reminded by the OECD, a conflict of interest can be defined as “a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest,” and this, in turn, is “considered an indicator, a precursor and a result of corruption.” Quite a treacherous line to walk at the time of the 19th Congress further north.

Published in Macau Daily Times on October 20, 2017

Kapok: The Crux of the Matter

A week ago, HK01, a Hong Kong-based Chinese online newspaper cooperating with The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed that our Chief Executive, Fernando Chui Sai On, and his legislator elder brother, Chui Sai Cheong, had been closely connected to an offshore company, Yee Shing International Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, for about two decades. As a subsidiary of Hopewell Holdings Limited, a major infrastructure and property firm listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1972 (with revenues of HKD6.64 billion in 2015), this offshore had in effect been co-founded by Chui Sai Cheong together with a long-term executive of Hopewell.
The Chief Executive was only director of the tax-free company for two short years, starting in 1997, and resigned from his directorship on July 30th 1999, shortly before it was announced that he would become, after the December 19 handover, the new Secretary for social affairs and culture. His brother, on the contrary, was only out of Yee Shing for a short spell in 1994 and was still listed as a director in 2010 when Mossack Fonseca, the now rather infamous Panamanian law firm, lost the custody contract for the offshore. HK01 consequently wondered why this function had never been enclosed in Chui Sai Cheong’s declaration of assets, the one all senior officials are supposed to divulge since a more stringent law on such matters was passed in January 2013—more than six years after the arrest of Ao Man Long, better late than never…
Interestingly enough, both brothers came up with a public explanation, and of course these were in line with the responses aired back in April when the so-called Panama papers, of which 29 percent of offshore firms were incorporated either in Hong Kong or China, started to unravel: why the big fuss, when all this is legal?! Chui Sai Cheong gave an interview to the ever-zealous and pro-establishment Chinese newspaper Macao Daily revealing that he had actually resigned from the director position in July 2012 (spoiler!), and that he, therefore, acted in accordance with the new asset declaration law. And then, Chui Sai On’s Spokesperson’s Office made it publicly known that by resigning from all business-related positions prior to his nomination to senior public posts he had been “strictly following the Basic Law of the MSAR”. And things simply went back to normal: silence!
I already argued earlier this year that governing is not only a matter of legality, and that responsibility in politics requires slightly more than being law abiding in grey areas—and the Panama papers are raw diamonds in that respect. The time when traditional paternalistic elites could profess “do as I say and not as I do” is coming to an end, and unfortunately not necessarily pointing to a reassuring future, whatever the setting, democratic or less so—think US, the Philippines, China, etc.
What these offshore leaks have revealed for Macao is well established: paragons of virtue and patriotism, even the ones representing Macao at the CPPCC or the NPC, are the ones practising “tax evasion” on an industrial scale while holding dual nationality. But for the Chui, dysfunctions are of another nature: what is the exact purpose of holding an official position? The younger Chui resigned 12 days before being nominated Secretary and the elder Chui resigned  from Yee Shing right in the middle of the revision of the new asset declaration law (passed in 2013, but introduced in December 2011)? In finance, that would be called “insider trading”! And then what about the separation of powers: the two brothers played musical chairs in the very same business! Moreover, Chui Sai On was supposed to champion social and economic housing, both as a legislator starting in 1992 and as a Secretary afterwards, while his brother, now a legislator, was helping Hopewell ripe the full benefits of luxury real-estate programs such as Nova Taipa and then Nova City?
Promiscuity is a powerful excuse on a tiny territory that has a multi-secular tradition of opacity, but still, this is too big to go unnoticed.

Published in Macau Daily Times, September 30th 2016

Kapok: Do as I say not as I do

In his first second-term policy address in March 2015, Mr Chui Sai On gave the assurance that consultative bodies would from now on be better regulated. The pledge was twofold: limit the number of consultant positions concurrently held by the same person to a maximum of three and limit the number of years of service in such positions to a maximum of six. A brand new team of Secretaries having been sworn in, the rationale was that if much needed and imaginative public policies were to be put in place, cells of resistance and possible conflicts of interest had to be subdued within these consultative bodies.
When things are decided by the happy few, consultation processes become a life-line. During an official ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the Communist regime in September 2014, Mr Xi Jinping himself praised “consultative democracy” as China’s unique way of allowing the people to participate in governance. Even if the President’s understanding of democracy was clearly derived from Marxism-Leninism, his urge for a well-established feed-back mechanism coming from the masses was genuine.
In Macao, dozens of public consultations concerning all kinds of governmental decisions have been organised, with varying degrees of soundness, relevance and legitimacy, despite a thorough revamping of the rules in August 2011. Moreover, consultative bodies have mushroomed, totalling now 47 such institutionalised gatherings [I had originally written 46, but forgot to add the newly appointed Urban Renewal Committee] placed under the direct authority of either the Chief Executive or one of the five Secretaries. With 17 consultative bodies under him, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture tops them all. These organs do not hold any actual power, but their members do influence the decision-making processes and ultimately the policies themselves.
In mid-March, All About Macau, a liberal-minded Chinese newspaper, came up with the story proving that prominent businessman Paul Tse was actually sitting on more than three such bodies, contrary to Chui’s commitment. Then, the same online outlet published a list of 24 personalities sitting on at least three boards of public agencies and consultative committees. Paul Tse was listed with seven such positions and so was lawyer-turned-legislator Vong In Fai, who was also Mr Chui’s chief campaigner in 2014. Chui Sai Peng, the very own cousin of Mr Chui Sai On and also a legislator, appeared on the list as well, and his name appeared again in the headlines on April 11 when it was discovered that an association he is heading had received important public funding to publish textbooks without going through a public tender. Possible conflicts of interest come in many guises in Macao but often originate in business circles, the Legislative Assembly and these consultative bodies.
Ever since the unravelling of the Ao Man Long scandal, the prevention of corruption at the highest echelon has been advertised as a priority: Chui Sai On’s first “real” policy address in November 2010 was all about “sunshine government” and “scientific administration.” If the enduring results of the latter had been always seriously doubted, the former was somehow being given credence, at least until February this year: the arrest of former prosecutor-general Ho Chio Meng on charges of fraud and abuse of power is now casting a long shadow on the system as a whole.
A conflict of interest – a personal interest taking precedence over the community’s – does not equate with corruption, but in the words of the European Parliament it can be “considered an indicator, a precursor and a result of corruption.” When the secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan asserts that there are less than ten personalities who participate in more than three consultative bodies and that this is being taken care of gradually, should we trust her, especially when the time spent in any given position is not even questioned? What about the issue of patronage? Indeed, the very same Chui Sai Peng sits on a staggering 143 boards of associations! And what about a standing committee member of the CPPCC sitting concurrently on boards of three universities in Macao?
The “small world” excuse is just that: an excuse. After all, the Athenian Democracy was designed for a city half the size of Macao.

Published in Macau Daily Times on April 22 2016

Kapok: Chui II and beyond

Now is the time when people like me get asked by journalists what to expect from the policy address to be delivered by the Chief Executive on March 23. Usually, this general policy speech and the subsequent details offered by the secretaries on their respective portfolios take place in November. The rationale of the timing has to do with the new session of the legislature having just started, in mid-October, and because the government’s budget for the coming fiscal year has to be discussed and voted upon. Mind you, Mr Chui did make an appearance in the Assembly last November to review the past year’s policies and “achievements”, and the budget for 2015 had already been passed on November 18 in plenary session with expected revenues of about MOP152 billion and spending of roughly MOP52 billion—of course, this will be revised and amended along the way. Yet, it is clear that despite the headlines about the sorry state of the economy — or “the new normal” — the government is going to spend “only” a third of its revenues. So why March? Easy: because of Chui II!
When this was announced in October by Mr Chui himself, I personally had great difficulties believing the stated logic: being sworn in in December for a new mandate, Mr Chui was arguing that he could only make announcements after that, and choosing a date late in March was a way to put the government’s work in line with the convening of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — a bit debatable if one truly believes in the “two systems”, but makes sense within the new patriotic environment we’re in. Mr Chui had already done the same back in March 2010, but then he was taking over from Edmund Ho. Looking back at 2004, Mr Ho did not shy away from the November custom, and thus it is true that Ho II looked a lot like Ho I, but only worse, and not simply because of the Ao Man Long scandal. But why March 2015? Mr Chui had ran unopposed and had just been “re-elected” by 95% of his small circle of supporters. At the time, speculation was rife regarding possible changes in government, but only Francis Tam, Florinda Chan and, maybe, Lau Si Io were thought to be on their way out. Moreover, competence had nothing to do with it — except in the case of Mr Lau, if the construction industry is to be trusted — and changes were somehow believed to be rather cosmetic, rather like musical chairs. On the side of the “opposition”, the picture looked gloomy: the New Macau Association (ANM) had lost one seat in the Assembly the year before, losing their historic position as the highest vote getter in such elections, and ANM’s young Turks had just been branded “enemies of the state” for organizing a supposedly “illegal” referendum with close to 9,000 people openly advocating universal suffrage to elect the Chief Executive…
Then came the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, the open-speculations about a whole new government in Macao, the announcement of a total revamping of all but one senior official on December 2, and to crown it all the visit by Xi Jinping reminding Macao that diversification was not a slogan anymore and this for the sake of the whole country. Later on, newly appointed secretaries started to be more vocal, reaching out to a new range of stakeholders. Promises were made. Critical assessments were vented. Heads, at coordinator, deputy-director and director levels started to roll. Despite the gambling profit nosedive, social and community-connected issues finally topped the list of priorities. For me, there is no doubt that the massive demonstrations of May played a crucial role, especially because Macao is endowed with First World revenues and Third World services: in China, the authorities have read Tocqueville’s “L’Ancien régime et la revolution”! On the 23rd, we will hear about a more prospective 5-year vision and a more coherent and scientifically grounded form of governance. What will be missing though is a way for consultative bodies, special committees and the like, to become really meaningful.


Published in Macau Daily Times, March 20 2015

Kapok: Expected Expectations

Nobody can deny it: the announcement of the new government line-up last Monday did not come as a surprise, quite the opposite. Secretaries’ and other senior officials’ names had been the talk of the town since early November. First on social media platforms, and then splashed on the web-based liberal Aamacau.com (All About Macau, 論盡媒體) on November 8th and ultimately confirmed, in a Pravda-like announcement, on November 11th as the masthead of the front page of the Macau Daily News. Interesting to note that the city’s main pro-government and pro-China daily has lost part of its edge—it was late compared to new electronic media—and yet journalists and commentators only went berserk after the list had been anointed by the establishment’s mouthpiece, here trusted almost like the “official gazette”—can anybody imagine the Ta Kung Pao or the Oriental Daily News announcing the new government beforehand in Hong Kong and everybody else taking it for granted?
Before the summer, rumours were rife as to who would be the chosen ones, but the idea of a complete fresh start was remote, to say the least. The retirement perks bill, despite its fiasco, had confirmed that some kind of musical chairs game was at play, and the names of Lionel Leong Vai Tak as well as that of Alexis Tam Chon Weng were in the mind if not on the lips of everybody slightly interested in Macao politics. But then, the rationale was that continuity would be preserved, and that “good soldiers”, even though they had proven themselves dully unimaginative, would stay on. Even Lau Si Io, the secretary for Transport and Public Works, most probably the most unanimously derided high official, was believed to keep his portfolio. Truly, who would accept the job that is at the heart of most livelihood issues in Macao— transport and housing, and in that order, if the government’s think tank is to be trusted—and still ignominiously tainted by the Ao Man-long scandal of 2006? No wonder that Raimundo Arrais do Rosário had to be called back from his decade long spell in Europe representing Macao…
Why then the need for such an apparent “clean slate” approach? First and quite ironically, because Chui Sai On himself was returned unopposed in his Chief Executive position, thus demeaning the very nature of an election by making it totally uncompetitive. Rigidity on the one hand was calling for more flexibility on the other. Second, because a real popular demand does exist and moreover was taken into account by Chui the candidate. On the side of popular demand, the unfairness of the retirement perks bill pushed 20,000 people onto the streets in May, ultimately forcing the government to bury the bill for good. And despite the many hurdles and intimidations faced by the organisers of the Macau civic referendum of late August, close to 9,000 citizens took part in this independent probing of citizens’ preferences. Eventually, the whole of Chui’s “campaign” was about him having heard the demands of the people, as expressed by the more than 100,000 suggestions and opinions sent to his office while “on the campaign trail”. And third, the Hong Kong SAR situation, whatever the perception, positive or negative, has had a corroding effect on the self-confidence of the powers that be, and in order to prevent a possible stalemate, preemptively providing a resolute stance for (orderly) change appears to be a smart move—beyond the real necessity to do so.
And then came Li Fei, the chairman of the Macau Basic Law Committee and the Deputy Secretary-General of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the very same man who came to Hong Kong in late August to explain the ruling of the standing committee over universal suffrage in our sister SAR, and now most notorious for having said that “Only one person [candidate] does not make an election, but too many is not proper either”. While attending a forum in Macao this week, he remarked that contrary to what some people think, deep-seated problems in Macao do not lie in the nature of political governance or stem from the fact that Macao is not democratic enough, but rather derive from Macao’s “own limitations”, the system inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration and other factors related to social and economic development. He then made it clear that “the overwhelming dominance of gambling in Macao is not in line with the overall interest of Macao” and furthermore that it is not in the “socioeconomic safety, stability and developmental interest of the mainland and the whole nation”. What is thus asked from Macao is to reinvent itself with much less gambling and much more patriotism. That for sure requires a whole new team!

Published in Macau Daily Times on December 5th 2014.

Kapok: Hong Kong and us

The recent debate over universal suffrage for the 2017 election of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong, and the much anticipated ruling made by the National People’s Congress (NPC) last Sunday over the issue have proven both fascinating and, rather unfortunately, extremely worrying.
Fascinating because the political awareness demonstrated by the Hong Kong citizenry at large has become a key feature of the distinct identity of our sister SAR. This was not originally “a given”, and it became salient only back in 2002-2003 over the debate regarding article 23 and the appending national security law with the SARS outbreak as a backdrop. Social movements and unrests of some significance have quite a long history in Hong Kong, but then the triggering causes clearly used to intertwine anti-colonial sentiments and mainly labor issues with China’s own turmoil of the time, as exemplified by the massive riots of the 1920s and 1960s. The vast demonstrations in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre in June 1989 were already encompassing a wider array of the population, but the scale of the mobilization was commensurate with the emotional shock felt by many because of the blood-stained character of the repression, and then genuine feelings of solidarity with the victims precipitated growing fears about the future of Hong Kong itself after 1997. The 2003 events mark a turning point as they took place after the handover to Chinese sovereignty and mainly gathered white-collar and professional segments of society, along with their families, and thus exhume the coming of age of what political scientists characterize as a “vibrant civil society”, targeting the government for being too weak in its commitment to uphold “a high degree of autonomy” for the SAR. Since then, the “civility” of society has grown both in strength and scope, whether one considers attendance to the June 4th vigil in Victoria Park, the youth-led Scholarism movement against patriotic education, the Occupy Central movement and of course the civil referendum of June 2014.
The worrying side derives palpably from the inflexible stance adopted by the central authorities, as the NPC ruling completely excludes popular initiatives by requiring candidates for the 2017 elections to be endorsed by a majority vote casts in a non-elected 1,200-member nominating committee, and furthermore limits the number of candidates to two or three nominees. Quite a stark contrast with the winning motion of the civil referendum that garnered the acquiescence of more than 330,000 people for a “three-track” proposal (public, nominating committee and parties) to put forward candidates! For Michael Davis, professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, this constitutes a major betrayal of the spirit and letter of both the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law as it subverts completely the commitment to universal suffrage. In a very strong opinion published in the South China Morning Post on September 3rd, Prof. Davis further argues that not only does this ruling undermine the rule of law, but also infringes international law as it contradicts the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Hong Kong is a signatory—article 25 of that Covenant provides every citizen the right “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage… guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors—, and furthermore contradicts the aim, as voiced out by Deng Xiaoping himself, for Hong Kong people to “put their hearts at ease”. For all these reasons, Prof. Davis concludes—without any risk of being sacked—that “democrats in the Legislative Council have no reason to support a bill under these constraints”.
What is there for us when Article 47 of our Macao Basic Law unmistakably lacks a straightforward commitment to universal suffrage? Well, first, this acts as a reminder that Macao is also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [see art. 40 in the 3rd section of the MBL], and thus, if we follow the UN Human Rights Committee that interpret the Covenant, that not only suffrage should be “universal and equal” but that “persons entitled to vote have a free choice of candidates”. And then, we have the statement of Li Fei, the deputy secretary general of the standing committee of the NPC sent to Hong Kong to explain the ruling: “Only one person [candidate] does not make an election, but too many is not proper either” [一個人就不是選舉，但多了也不合適]. This constitutes a prompt recall that elections are chiefly about building trust, and thus Mr Chui’s commitment to further develop democracy in Macao, as stated in his 2014 platform, appears more pressing than one would have initially expected.

Published in Macau Daily Times, September 5th 2014

Kapok: The uniqueness of being only one

Elections get me excited, even when one has no real choice and the predictability of the outcome is no less than 100%. This is uncommon, I admit, as what fills people with enthusiasm during electoral events is the thrill of the contest, the uncertainty of the ultimate result despite the polls and the predictions, and of course the fact that any election is an exercise in power, the power of the one dropping her or his ballot in the box in order to decide upon her or his community’s future for the next four or five years. Elections in essence need to be contested; they suppose competition. In order for this competition to take place, differences have to be carved up, contrasts revealed, ideological stances spelled out, contradictory options openly expressed, alternative proposals debated, etc. More often than not, the infighting and bickering have more to do with ego and personal postures than with platforms, and yet this is a moment when the whole body of citizens gets hooked by the “affairs of the city”, the etymological meaning of politics. Macao people still remember very vividly the 2012 elections of the Chief Executive (CE) in Hong Kong: images of Henry Tang, often caricatured as a pig in the satirical press, blasting live on TV Leung Chun-ying, nicknamed the wolf by the same press, over his tough stand on civil liberties were gripping—and indeed the original front-runner ultimately lost the race to the challenger. The pro-democratic camp candidate, Albert Ho, who stood no chance of winning right from the start, was ultimately relegated to an even fainter secondary role, despite his many attempts to corner both pro-establishment candidates over their (lack of) commitment regarding universal suffrage. And the ultimate irony is that there was no real power of the people either, as the “election committee” was only made up of 1,200 members.
So, what can get me so excited about the present CE elections in Macao? Of course not the program of the unique candidate, which remarkably resembles its 2009 previous incarnation. Of course not the campaign itself, which consists of touring the ever supportive corporations aka traditional interests-associations and hearing patiently their very segmented grievances and proposals, as if they had not have ample time to express these during the past five legislative sessions, again missing the big picture of the overall interest of the community. No, what really fascinates me is the acquiescent abjuration of the most basic democratic values voiced out by some commentators. The argument goes like this: There is no alternative, this is the nature of the “other” system in Macao, and a contested CE election is the exception in our SAR, as it only happened once, back in 1999.
It is true that Hong Kong, in that respect, is quite the opposite as it experienced only two “exceptions” in 2002 and 2005, when Tung Chee Hwa and Donald Tsang respectively ran unopposed—a contested electoral process is thus the rule on the other side of the Pearl River. But what should be added is that these exceptions occurred at a time when our sister SAR went through its worst crisis of confidence ever—Tung indeed resigned before the end of his term, supposedly for health reasons. If we broaden the perspective to the world and google “elections with only one candidate”, what are the instances that we get? Yemen, Zimbabwe and North Korea… Let’s be honest, even “old democracies” fall victims of uncontested elections: in 2012, for example, some 40% of candidates ran uncontested in the state legislature elections in the United States, the highest percentage in 10 years. What kind of commentaries did that situation attract though? Acquiescence and fatalism or a genuine worry about the balance of power and the democratic outlook? Back in 2009 in Macao, there were talks of a possible challenger, the quite popular Prosecutor general Ho Chio-meng. 2009 was also a year during which many politically sensitive surveys and polls were conducted, thus giving the impression that public opinion was much more directly probed.
I partially agree with the idea that this time around what will really matter is foreseeably the new appointments and possibly the new structure of government that will be revealed at the end of December. Yet, with the challenge of the civic referendum looming, I guess it would have been a good idea for Mr Chui to at least bring the novelty of a live TV show, some kind of hybrid between a debate and a forum. Courage is indeed a component of political legitimacy.

Published in Macau Daily Times, August 22nd 2014

Kapok: Imperious engagement

Agreed, for society to engage with the state, the government, rules have to be prescribed and followed, and yet, engagement, on society’s part, is as much a matter of orderly procedure as it is a staple of creative novelty, especially when demands appear to fall on deaf ears on the receiving end. Few regimes in the world, with the patent exception of North Korea, openly advocate the irrelevance of the people—and even for supremo Kim the Third, it is only because he has been led to believe that he is the stellar guide and the god-like embodiment of “his” people on earth. For idealist and progressive minds, the strength and balance of a democratic regime depend on the existence of a vibrant “civil society” engaging the state, even though very often this means contesting it. This has proven true for most of the peaceful transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy, and this is equally significant in more established democratic settings, those in which citizens have started to question the validity of a purely electoral definition of democracy that only cares about citizen-voters every 4 to 5 years—what scholars dub “liberal democracy disenchantment”. Hence the fad for participatory democracy, public consultations, deliberative polling and “civil sector” partaking in government to partly compensate for the ubiquitous “careerisation” of politics. I am being cynical here, as if it was a mere instrumentalisation on the side of politicians—some kind of conspiracy to preserve the domination of the few on the many by defusing revolutionary threats—, but these forms of engagement are actually designed to restore the legitimacy of a regime that claims to be by, of and for the people.
The same rationale goes for dictatorships and for what political scientists call “anocracies”—a midway between autocracy and democracy in which vested interests compete among themselves and yet confiscate power. Whatever the regime, what matters ultimately is for ruling elite to last and moreover, for their natural or anointed inheritors to outlive them in the same capacity—here, Kim the Third is truly an exception, and even the most obscure despotic apprentice knows it. Hence the necessity for the “people” to be solicited and consulted in order to keep track of the common good, even though there are no electoral mechanisms to make the rulers accountable. Of course, the exercise has its limits, even in a place as sophisticated as China. Cao Shunli, one of the most respected and eminent “petitioners” paid this very fact with her life on March 14: arrested at Beijing International Airport on September 14 last year while on her way to Geneva to attend a human rights event, she was only indicted in December for “picking quarrels to create disturbances” and ultimately fell into a coma at the end of February because of appalling detention conditions, only to die a few weeks after. Petitioning for Cao Shunli, a law graduate, had become the only “channel” to reach a government necessarily comprehended as benevolent—her “petitioner” crusade started back in 2002 after she had been sacked from her work unit for exposing corruption in housing distribution. This time around, many believe she was actually arrested because of the two-month long sit-in she organized along 60 other petitioners in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to request to participate in the drafting of the ‘National Human Rights Action Plan’, as law—Chinese law—entitled her to.
In Macao, petitioning is not as lethally hazardous, but the fact that out of 900 petitions addressed to Mr Chui Sai On in 2013, only 82 have been answered directly, a bit less than 600 sent to relevant secretaries and 306 archived without any kind of reply has prompted disquieted comments by some analysts—mainly stressing that the Chief Executive was wrong to treat so lightly the ever expanding power of the people to directly voice their anxieties. I would add that first of all we would need to know a bit more about the relevance of the answers produced by the Chief Executive and his secretaries—ask legislators how their queries to the government are being timely and adequately treated… And then, why should “direct” contacts with the highest authorities via petitions or radio call-in show take precedence over “mediated” and “informed” probing coming from “concerned groups”, media and legislators?

Published in Macau Daily Times, March 21 2014

Kapok: Look on the bright side

Contrary to many analysts and politicians, I don’t believe that the policy address delivered last week by our Chief Executive is the “worst ever”. Moreover, I simply refuse to side with the sneering scornful commentators who have been disparaging the wording of the address for its shallowness, unconvincing semantics and lack of specifics. Sure, just like every single year, the address reflects a lack of courage that derives from a subtle mix of personal equation—our less than charismatic leader—, a balancing act between vested interests—the “four families”, their many cronies and their concealed conflicts of interests—, and institutional design—the absence of any form of accountability that has been eroding the overall legitimacy of the whole system. Just like in years past, the address is rather short of breath when it comes to critically reviewing past achievements or lack thereof regarding the implementation of previous public policies, as if the usual process of “assess, continue, revise, substitute or stop” had absolutely no meaning in our land of milk and honey.
Despite all the free flow of renminbi, mistakes, blunders and more than baroque policy designs will ultimately engender problems that will become ever harder to disentangle—traffic and public transportation naturally spring to mind—or simply impossible to tackle due to lack of preparedness—imagine a SARS-like crisis in Macao given our 2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 residents, half the ratio of both Hong Kong and Taiwan. And here, I am not even factoring the apparent incapacity of several government departments to anticipate things to come and thus articulate a diagnosis somehow correlated with reality. Just looking into the execution of the budget for 2012, now examined in the second permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly, and in which government revenues stand at MOP145 billion and spending at MOP54 billion, one soon realizes how wrong the government had been in its prospective calculations back in November 2011 when the budget for 2012 was thought to reach revenues of MOP115 billion and spending of MOP77 billion, ultimately earning 26% more but spending 30% less! And then, on such a trivial question as home-ownership and just as Mr Chui was trying to justify the backseat position given to housing measures, both our top executive and his “grey eminence” Lao Pun Lap started quoting figures that seemed to contradict the statistics of the DSEC: do we have 82.3% of home-owners, as per the 2011 census, or 72.9% according to DSEC figures for 2006 (down from 76.7% in 2001)? And how come the trend has been inverted at a time of renewed speculation? And what is the actual relevance of that figure anyway when these concern households (not individuals) in which young people who already have jobs purposely stay longer with their parents and delay their entry into an unsympathetic real-estate market beginning a career?
Nevertheless, and in spite of all the shortcomings, this particular address is announcing a paradigm shift of some sort, one in which, for the first time ever, the “short-termism” of the whole exercise is being questioned: if not a vision yet, surely there is a wish to project the whole community in the future. This is reflected in the generic title of the address “Increasing global capacity and promoting sustainable development”, that somehow positions “well-being” and “standard of living”, the two dominant leitmotifs of the 2013 and 2012 addresses respectively, as a dependent variable of the capacity to cultivate “talents”, that is to prepare Macao’s residents to be competitive and more self-assured in an environment that is necessarily extroverted. Ultimately, the government seems to realize that by overemphasizing the traditional Weberian perspective of the “protective” father, it had been defaulting on its capacity to be a “nurturing” uncle.

Published in Macau Daily Times, November 22 2013