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: Hooked on junkets

By mid-2015, gambling-related crimes had already gone up by more than a third, with loan sharking cases and unlawful detentions being of particular concern. This trend was just confirmed by Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak during a media briefing held on December 2nd: for the first nine months of 2015, the overall increase in gambling-related crimes stabilized at 34% (1,118 cases in total), with loan-sharking offences increasing by 40% year-on-year and unlawful detentions by a staggering 112.5%! Mr Wong also previously insisted on a turning point in March this year, with no further explanations being given.
In fact, quite the contrary: the Secretary was adamant in downplaying the significance of this highly noticeable jump. For him, in official speak, the rise was not to be attributed to the “adjustment in the gaming industry” — even though many junket venues are shutting down and all analysts seem to concur that credit lines have been crunched. Furthermore, he insisted on the fact that most of the victims and suspects of these crimes were “non-residents” and that these offences had no spillover effects on the rest of the community, as demonstrated by a slight decrease of the overall number of crimes over the first nine months of the year. To support Mr Wong’s claim, I would even add that gambling-related crimes appear rather limited in scope, representing a mere 11% of the total number of crimes (10,347 over the period), whereas revenues attributed to “gaming” amounted to 85%! Still, there was and there will continue to be an upsurge…
Ultimately, what I find really suspicious are these efforts at attenuating the meaning of everything. This of course goes beyond Macao and local politics: most modern politicians tend to “shelter” public opinions just like a mother or father protects her or his own children from hearing too blunt a disturbing reality and eventually one always benefits from showing that he or she is fully in control of the inner workings of any situation. No wonder then that Mr Wong would remark that the Dore case — theft and default in repayment put together — exclusively resulted from the shortcomings of the gambling promoter itself, and had therefore nothing to do with the ailing situation of the gambling industry. Yet, just like it is pure hypocrisy and manipulation to use the palatable and entertainment-minded word “gaming” (博彩 bocai or even 玩樂 wanle) instead of the highly hazardous and irrational term “gambling” (赌博 dubo), “adjustment” actually means a complete revamping under duress of the industry that has made Macao a “success” over the past decade. Article 118 of the Macao Basic Law has not changed, but drawing policies that will promote “tourism and recreation” in line with Macao’s interests has taken a whole new meaning.
Contrary to what some lawyers and foreign observers profess, it is highly debatable to univocally state that “the territory would not have achieved what it did if the [gambling] industry had been over-regulated.” First, because remaking history with “if” is pointless. Second, because one could infer that whatever the legal framework, investors would still have been tempted by the proximity of such a huge market, especially in a monopolistic position and with a cultural background somehow favoring games of luck. Third, because a lot of rich Chinese millionaires, whatever the origin of their wealth, saw Macao has a way out and on top of that credit did not have to be guarantied by the casinos themselves. In short, Macao was bound to be a magnet.
Actually, I would argue quite the opposite: lax regulation of THE industry delayed necessary adjustments and long term vision — money was simply too easy to make — and we are finally witnessing the beginning of the unraveling of the promise made back in 1993 when the Basic Law was passed. Before Dore, there was Huang Shan in May 2014, with some HKD10 billion vanishing in smoke, so clearly the “adjustment period” is closely related to the “new normal”, for better and for worse.

Published in Macau Daily Times, December 4th 2015