Kapok: Plus ça change…

When then Premier Wen Jiabao visited Macao in November 2010, he reminded the SAR government that “power [had] to operate under the sun” and that it was duty-bound “to spend more money on livelihood issues”.
Those words sounded like a warning at a time when the discrepancy between public revenue and public spending was gaping: the government was getting richer by the day, and not much was being done in terms of infrastructure, urban development and meaningful public policies for the benefit of the population – think education, healthcare, retirement schemes, transport, lodging, sport facilities, greening of the city, etc.
In the second quarter of 2010, the government had spent only a quarter of what it had pocketed, and piling up resources while designing half-baked policies was the latest fad. “Scientific governance” had just started to bubble up in official speeches, and everybody was thus longing for things to change. Mr Wen had come to Macao to attend the third Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (PSCs), that had concluded on an upbeat note with the announcement of the establishment of a US$1 billion fund to help Asian and African PSCs in their development drive.
As often happens, high expectations are usually met with disappointment.
In Macao proper, things have barely improved, and we still don’t know whether this is due to the appalling mess left by Mr Ho’s tarnished second mandate or Mr Chui’s ineffective first mandate, but clearly livelihood issues have not been addressed properly: traffic is worse than ever, air pollution has aggravated, economic housing plans and healthcare facilities are still simmering on the back burner, smoking is still allowed in casinos, etc.
And that was not for lack of resources: in 2013, the record year for gambling revenues, the government spent less than 30% of what it had “earned”, and even if the “imbalance” in public finance significantly decreased with the decline in gambling revenue, the government spent a mere 41% of its fiscal revenue in 2014 and despite an adverse situation in 2015, spending only amounted to 70% of the revenue last year and surplus still equated to almost 45% of ordinary spending! No wonder we are in need of a new law on public finance for legislators to be able to more closely monitor the situation.
And yet, one can wonder: are most of the legislators part of the solution or actually part of the problem? Why is it that all these businessmen-turned-public-figures are so much against R&D and innovative investments when it comes to public spending? Could it be because they control land usage, public services and the maintenance of these services? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: Mr Li Keqiang, now Prime minister and visiting Macao for the fifth Ministerial Forum is talking about “people-oriented governance, scientific decision-making and giving priority to the people’s livelihood”…
Diversification, meaning gambling refitted with tourism, entertainment, culture and creative industries, is now the way to go, thanks to the admonition aired by President Xi Jinping when he visited Macao in December 2014, and the cooperation with PSCs appears to be one of the two key pillars, together with the integration of the Pearl River Delta, for this ambition to become a reality. The 19 measures to further cooperation between China and PSCs are thus worthy of careful consideration.
But facts are stubborn things: trade between China and these countries peaked in 2013, and the aim was for these exchanges to reach USD160 billion by 2016, whereas they declined by 26% last year, amounting to less than $100 billion. The $1 billion fund announced by Mr Wen six years ago has received a limited $125 million in capital, and only two projects, one in Angola, the other in Mozambique, have been approved for partial funding.
Having the Fund for Development moved from Beijing to Macao might help, and yet for what purpose and to whose benefit? In Macao, the house always wins!

Published in Macau Daily Times, October 14th 2016

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: Political Maturity

As Kenneth Chan, a former Civic Party legislator, puts it with a sarcastic bitter-sweet smile: advocating “universal suffrage” and “greater democracy” is not “sexy” anymore in Hong Kong, people want more, and they made their voice heard, loud and clear, via the ballot box, in what some dub an act of “resistance” to Beijing’s encroachment over glorified liberal values. The democratic camp has once again prevailed in the geographical constituencies of the Legco election, and even comforted its precious veto power over bills that require a two-third majority to be made into law.
Should we be surprised? As also acknowledged by Mr Chan, what we used to call the pan-democrats had been talking about and pushing for universal suffrage for more than 20 years with very limited results, quite the contrary. Beijing’s stiffening position regarding the degree of openness it would tolerate for the 2017 Chief Executive election, the growing estrangement of CY Leung, the present Chief Executive, from a politically savvy middle class and the rise of a youth-led protest movement that culminated with the Autumn 2014 Umbrella Movement were bound to have consequences. The signs of change had already become visible in the November 2015 district councils election and again in the February 2016 legislative by-election in the New Territories East constituency: so-called localist groups 本土派 had made a strong showing, thus vindicating the umbrella movement heritage.
But then, a general election was something of a different scale and the context had been changing fast: frustration and humiliation had triggered very adverse and boisterous reactions, but fear was creeping in, even more so with the booksellers disappearance of October 2015.
The scope of data available regarding the election is still limited, but as pointed out by political scientist Edmund Cheng, several observations can already be made.
As far as turnout is concerned — more than 58%; the highest ever — there is obviously a close correlation between street protests and high turnout: the previous record high was in 2004 in the wake of the massive protests against article 23.
The support for the pro-democracy camp (55%) and the pro-regime camp (around 40%) is steady, and the great novelty thus lies in the fragmentation of and the reshuffling of personnel within the pro-democracy camp, in favour of radicals, localists and supporters of self-determination — with the latter concept being fuzzy enough to allow for many interpretations, including a more neutral “community engagement”.
Clearly, there is a convergence between street politics and electoral politics: only two veteran pan-democrats who held their seats before 1997 made it this time and as many as 6 “umbrella generation” activists were elected in geographical constituencies. Is that enough to say with CY Leung that “a large number of voters were dissatisfied with the performance of the pro-democracy lawmakers in the past, and they didn’t formerly vote for the pro-establishment camp”?
For Edmund Cheng, in order to explain why the pro self-determination camp has been able to become a catch-all party in just one stroke, one has to look into structural changes and conjectural forms of mobilisation.
There were indeed transformative effects of the umbrella movement, both regarding the high level of turnout and the registration of new voters. Then the political-identity claim overrode socio-economic issues, although one could argue that the overall highest vote-getter, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, actually ran a campaign with a comprehensive perspective underpinned by social justice and sustainability. And lastly, polarisation of the vote increased, with a generation gap translating into very differentiated voting reserves.
As far as context was concerned, the disqualification of pro-independence or localist candidates over the summer paved the way for “strategic voting” to become significant — thus uniting the “idealists” — and the influence of social media has become a distinctive and potent feature of electoral politics in this part of the world.
When and if rationality is concerned, vote allocation and strategic voting become crucial points, and social media can obviously compensate for the lack of resources. Points not to be forgotten for our own legislative elections in 2017.

Published in Macau Daily Times, September 16 2016

Kapok: Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

Being once again more in tune, on a daily basis, with politics in Hong Kong, I can now better appreciate how different things are on this side of the Delta. With the ongoing campaign for the legislative elections that will be held this coming Sunday, the contrast is truly striking.
Not that the extent of the debates make things necessarily more enthralling in the former British colony: after all, the independence issue does catalyze a soul-searching discourse while it somehow hijacks the party — with and without a capital ‘P’. Important topics pertaining to social fairness or sustainable development thus play second fiddle.
Or do they? In the end, these are not mere technicalities, and one could argue that they actually necessitate a sense of certainty regarding the future if one is to find solutions that bind the whole community, and for several generations to come. Maybe the order of priorities is not that foolish after all.
But then come the ‘whys’? Why is Hong Kong so modern and Macao so traditional?
Language is not at stake: Cantonese, its plasticity and wealth of diverse and colloquial expressions, is striving in both SARs. Neither is the openness to the latest fads, be them Japanese, Korean or American: Pokémon GO is equally played on a Galaxy Hedge or an iPhone on both banks of the Pearl River.
Structure of population does play a role: only a minority of the population is born in Macao proper, and thus identification with one’s place is less of a contentious point while finding a ‘home’ within the Motherland.
And then, colonial heritage matters too: if “open” elections together with universal suffrage were in effect held sooner in Macao (early 1970s, versus early 1990s for Hong Kong), meaningful ones (with an extended registration of voters) actually started only in the mid-1980s (with a drastic recounting of the voters in 1992) in the barely lusophone city, and then the Portuguese colonial administration was very reluctant to co-opt the local Chinese elite in its higher echelons, a stark contrast with the localization drive of the British — and here I will refrain from comparing Rocha Vieira with Chris Patten, mainly out of respect for the latter.
The nature and organization of two very, very, very (where do I stop?) different economies are essential to understanding the divergence: financial capitalism can be murky, but it can never reach the degree of opacity of a gambling monopoly (now turned oligopoly) essentially resting on “gambling promoters” (the famous junkets) that are held accountable to no one but themselves. And in the context of Macao, outside influences bring tacky sophistication, but certainly not transparency. Laws and regulations in Nevada do — up to a certain point.
And then you have the press — freedom of the press, not only in name, but with independent titles able to finance themselves and run stories unimpaired. Sure, the environment is stifling in Hong Kong, but in Macao, Ou Mun Iat Pou and its propaganda-like content rules, while All About Macau, the most important liberal title in Chinese, still struggles to pay for a server based outside of the SAR…
When election time comes in Macao, there are no lawyers, no university professors, no journalists and no students with a real chance of winning the day. When a CUHK poll published in July indicates that 17% of the population supports independence in Hong Kong — 39% among the ones aged 15 to 24! — it does say something about the condition of the society. In Macao, no such poll exists and we are left to speculate on the state of the society thanks to the grassroots petitions that are mushrooming in support of the soon-to-withdraw UBER. Do people remember what happened with Viva Macau, Macao Dragon Company and Reolian? And then, who owns the taxis in Macao?
Macao, traditional? Yes, but in whose interests?

Published in Macau Daily Times, September 2nd 2016

Kapok: The age of submission

It is unsurprising that the proposal of a law reviewing the Electoral Law of the Legislative Assembly, put forward by the government in that very same Assembly and approved in first reading on August 9 by all legislators but four — the ones we can easily brand our own pan-democrats: Ng Kuok Cheong, Au Kam San, José Pereira Coutinho and Leong Veng Chai — is limited in scope and falls short of the ambition that our less than two-year-old government was supposed to entertain in all matters of governance. Should we be surprised?
Admittedly back in December 2014, serious doubts were raised regarding the capacity of the new secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, to carry both a far-reaching reform of the administrative (aka political) system and a much-needed revamping of the judicial institutions — recent outspoken complaints coming from traditionally soft-spoken quarters of society, lawyers and legal advisers leading the charge, aptly testify to that sorry state of judicial affairs.
The main merits of Sonia Chan appear to be that she is untainted — with the indictment of the former Prosecutor General, this is proving precious — and a keen supporter of the Chief Executive (CE). Her previous position at the Office for Personal Data Protection had allowed her to shine as the gravedigger of an inoffensive but embarrassing so-called “civic referendum” targeting Chui’s undisputed re-election in August 2014.
Nevertheless, even though she is only acting on behalf of the vision of the CE, she is supposed to prove herself, just like Alexis Tam and Raimundo do Rosário are trying to do. But then, healthcare, education, traffic management and lodging are top priorities, and the mandate given to her colleagues is loud and clear. On her side, we are in total denial: the system is sound and thus going beyond the reform of 2012 and the ridiculously muted “+2+2+100” formula is out of the question. Electoral democracy in Macao is a matter of technicalities: due processes for the registration of voters and candidates as well as financial aspects and length of the campaign are the only issues that matter. Representativeness: who cares? Quality of the debate: what’s the point? Actual and proven capacity of the ones who represent us all: to what end?
During the public consultation organized in May in preparation of the law proposal, and despite organizational biases favoring traditional and pro-government sectors of the society, persistent voices stressing key (substantial) issues were heard: in a TDM report, a lady was quoted as saying “the issue of insufficient directly-elected lawmakers has always bothered most of us residents” and another resident wondered “aren’t elections all about [justness] and fairness?”, thus “very [reasonably]” asking for “more directly-elected lawmakers” and “[cutting] down on the number of appointed lawmakers”.
To be fair, and in comparison to Hong Kong, the number of elected lawmakers is not that inadequate. In Hong Kong, as of today, we have 3,779,085 registered voters, and 35 (out of 70) legislators are returned through universal suffrage. Overall, that’s one directly elected legislator for 108,000 voters. In Macao, as of December 2015, we have 285,999 registered voters, for a total of 14 directly elected seats (out of 33 in total), so in effect one directly elected deputy for 20,500 voters. So why is the system perceived as unfair?
Having ALL indirectly elected lawmakers (whereas they are the exceptions in Hong Kong) voted in unopposed does not build trust. Having no law regarding political parties, no properly designed constituencies, a flawed electoral system dispersing the votes and an unjustifiable number of CE-appointed legislators do no help either. And then, introducing the review of the law a few months before the elections proper and dismissing any challenge to representativeness as one potentially threatening “stability” in Macao speak volumes about the lack of ambition of Chui: no wonder that the conclusions of the public consultation reports state that for any matter pertaining to the designation of legislators, the decision power rests exclusively with the central government. Submission it is then…