2017 Volume 63 Issue 1 Pages 85-97
In Macau, on the 25th of May in 2014, more than 10,000 citizens marched in protest against government’s proposal to pay hefty amounts of retirement benefits to high-rank government officials. There were also citizens who supported the government’s proposal, about 1,000, marched through same route on the same day. Two hundred sixty police officers were dispatched. Despite the size of this political protest in the small Special Administrative Region, no violence took place.
Between the night of 27th and the morning of 28th, 5,000 citizens sat-in surrounding the Legislative Committee Building. On the 29th, the government of Macau has submitted to the action of its citizens and withdrew its proposal. The movement was lead by non-communist labour union, anti-communist political parties and individual journalists. It was organized by SNS such as facebook.
Why do this kind of non-violence movements succeed in Macau? One important factor is that the population at large in Macau forms a sort of ‘Intimate Sphere’ where people have little antagonistic or hostile feeling towards one another.
Historically speaking, the police force of Macau has been reluctant to use physical power to control on-the-street political movements unless the movements are related to constitutional or ‘core interest of the nation’ matters. The court’s decision to support citizens’ freedom to express political opinions in public in 2013 has helped to reconfirm this tendency of police not to engage in political issues.
In this small special administrative region, most of the community members have friends or relatives in both sides of political groups or in the police force. This sentiment inherently makes it difficult for political disputes escalate to physical violence.
The representative system of Macau is not yet completely institutionalized. However, the several informal ways of soliciting public opinions are effective in this small administrative region. This can be taken as an example or experimental case of future democratization of entire China.
