As Hong Kong’s streets were choked with tear gas, petrol bombs and water cannons in a dramatic escalation of clashes over the weekend, just an hour’s ferry ride away in Macau all was going to Beijing’s plan. On Sunday, 400 members of the gambling hub’s pro-Beijing elite went ahead as expected and “elected” former legislature head Ho Iat-seng, the only candidate on the ballot, as the city’s next leader. For Hong Kong’s young protesters, the tightly scripted appointment of Ho, the son of an industrial tycoon with strong ties to China, is yet another reminder for why they have chosen to openly defy Beijing. For Ho, Hong Kong’s summer-long political unrest has given Macau a chance to position itself as the new poster child of Beijing’s “one country, two system” principle, under which it is about to mark 20 years of Chinese rule. The administration seeks to present the city as a picture of prosperity and stability, one that could ultimately pave the way for Taiwan to return to the mainland China fold. But Macau has also been built on fault lines that challenge that vision of the future. Why Macau has been spared from the political turmoil now gripping Hong Kong Both Hong Kong and Macau adopted the one country, two systems formula when they returned to Chinese sovereignty. The system allows each special administrative region to retain a high degree of autonomy for 50 years and was designed by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping with the goal of eventually enticing Taiwan back into Beijing’s fold. In Hong Kong, critics are increasingly seeing the system as failing, with demonstrations sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill plunging the city into a deep political crisis. The city’s disaffected youth – with broad public support at their back – have turned their anger over shrinking freedoms, stalled democracy and diminishing upward mobility into increasingly violent confrontations, posing a direct challenge to Beijing’s authority. In Macau, Ho has promised to turn the former Portuguese colony into a one country, two systems success story. “[Macau] should show to Taiwan the success of one country, two systems … and show its advantages,” he said after a meeting with members of the city’s electoral committee. But Macau, with its reliance on gambling revenues and just 623,000 people, has a long way to go to make a convincing case. Hong Chi-chang, a former head of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, which represents Taiwan in affairs with the mainland, said Hong Kong differed from its smaller neighbour in several key ways. “Hong Kong’s rule of law is widely recognised in Taiwan, and the standings of its financial, logistic and educational sectors are unmatchable for Macau,” Hong said. Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, a former deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said Macau would need more than obedience to make it a model city. “Does it mean one country, two systems only works in places without any protests?” said Huang, now a professor at the island’s Tamkang University. Compared with the former British colony, Macau has long been the better behaved special administrative region in the eyes of the ruling Communist Party. The city has had its share of demonstrations, but they were mostly targeted at local corruption and other problems within the Macau government. Since its handover, Macau has seen little disaffection against Beijing and shown more willingness to integrate with the mainland. Such political compliance and affinity is all the more valuable to Beijing now in the face of Hong Kong’s political turmoil. Last month, three days after a group of Hong Kong protesters defaced the national emblem in defiance of the central government, an influential party newspaper applauded Macau for its “successful practice” of one country, two systems. First among its “remarkable achievements”, according to the front-page article written by an official from the central government’s liaison office in Macau, was the “effective enforcement” of Beijing’s “comprehensive jurisdiction” over the city. As an example, it cited Macau’s enactment of a national security legislation in 2009 under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, which prohibits acts of “treason, secession, and subversion” against the central government. Hong Kong’s administration sought to introduce a similar law in 2003 but the proposal was quickly dropped after half a million people took to the streets in opposition and demanded then-chief executive Tung Chee-hwa to step down. Tung eventually resigned in the middle of his second term. In contrast, Macau’s largely pro-Beijing legislature offered only limited opposition to its version of the legislation – just two people vetoed a third of its clauses, with the rest approved unanimously. Carrie Lam says Hong Kong will use legal means to tackle protests but admits stalemate caused by government’s refusal to meet protesters’ demands Macau has also been quick to embrace national education: Chinese flags fly at all schools and campuses across the city, and many have adopted history textbooks published by the People’s Education Press, the mainland’s main publisher of textbooks. Last week, the party’s official mouthpiece, People’s Daily , posted on Weibo a video of a Macau student showing off her high school textbooks. The history, geography and math text books appeared identical to those used on the mainland. “Why are Macau people so excellent? It all comes to the importance of education,” the viral post said. The adoption of mainland textbooks would be unthinkable in Hong Kong, where the city government’s push for a national education curriculum in schools ended in embarrassing defeat in 2012. The administration was forced to shelve the plans after student protesters laid siege to government headquarters for 10 days. The government had hoped the curriculum would instil patriotism and strengthen Chinese identity among young people but critics saw it as an attempt to “brainwash” children with party propaganda. Much of the criticism of the national education programme stemmed from fears of the mainland’s encroachment on Hong Kong but such fears are seldom heard in Macau, whee pro-Beijing sentiment goes back decades before its 1999 handover and extends from the grass roots to the business and political communities. In 1966, as the Cultural Revolution spilled over from the mainland, pro-communist leftists in Macau started to riot against harsh Portuguese rule and eventually claimed victory over the colonial regime. Since then, Macau’s real political power was largely left to its pro-Beijing business leaders and trade unions. By the time the city was officially returned to China, it had been under de facto Chinese control for three decades. How the Hong Kong protests inspire Macau’s youth – and teach their government to be wary Unlike the British colonial government, the Portuguese regime did little to improve livelihoods or develop educational or physical infrastructure. Towards the end, it even gave up maintaining security altogether. A series of “triad wars” broke out among rival crime syndicates battling for control of the casinos, plunging the city into chaos and recession. “For many Macau residents, the corrupt colonial master was a complete failure, and they welcomed Chinese rule, like people seeing hope after hitting bottom,” said Antony Wong Dong, who grew up among a leftist theatre group in Macau, where his father, a party cadre, arrived in 1958 to lead communist culture and art work. After the handover, Macau went through a period of breakneck economic growth as it liberalised its gambling industry and Beijing allowed mainlanders to travel more freely to the city. The changes opened the door to foreign operators and floods of tourists, and by 2006 Macau had overtaken Las Vegas as the world’s biggest gambling centre. Last year, Macau’s per capita GDP was US$86,355, fourth highest in the world and 77 per cent more than Hong Kong’s figure. But beneath the affluence and stability, the city faces many deep-rooted problems, from unaffordable housing and widening inequality, to the lack of economic diversification, according to Larry So Man-yum, a political commentator in Macau. “With no ability to solve these problems, the government has resorted to generous annual cash handouts and free health care to muffle the people’s grumbles,” So said. A big part of the problem is that the Macau government relies on casino taxes for over 80 per cent of its annual revenue – but as casino visitors and revenues have fallen, the city’s economy has plunged into recession. The Macau government is also wary that Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy movement could stir up its own disaffected young people. Last week, a planned rally in Macau to support Hong Kong’s protests was cancelled after police denied permission for the gathering. But police officers showed up at the planned site anyway and took down the names of 29 passing young people. Some were searched, and seven were taken away to a police station for hours of questioning. Two days later, a group of young activists published an open letter online, calling for democracy and accusing Beijing of increasingly authoritarian rule. “When people think about Macau, it is always regarded as a giant gambling hub with enormous wealth. But beneath this mask of prosperity, there is a group of disenfranchised and oppressed people crying for help,” the letter said. “The time to fight for our universal rights is now, before Macau becomes just another Chinese city.” Meet Macau’s new chief executive Ho Iat-seng: a media-shy Beijing loyalist with deep mainland ties Sulu Sou Ka-hou, one of the four opposition lawmakers in the city’s 33-member legislature, was one of the people behind the letter. The 28-year-old said he had seen a political awakening among his peers, in contrast with the city’s more conservative society. For him, one country, two systems is about defending civic freedoms but it is also about preserving Macau’s identity, way of life, and people’s sense of belonging. “How many of us are still born and raised in Macau? It is a fact that Macau is a migrant city, but with so many people moving into it, will our way of life also be changed? Will our values be affected and challenged?” he said. As of 2016, 43.6 per cent of the people living in Macau were born in mainland China, more than those born in Macau, according to official figures. As mainlanders move into the city, a growing number of Macanese are moving to the mainland, drawn by generous subsidies for university placements and work opportunities. “The development of the Greater Bay Area has become a political task, with the Macau government using all means to encourage Macanese to leave Macau,” Sou said, referring to the central government’s scheme to integrate cities in southern China into an economic and business hub. “If this goes on for much longer, how much sense of belonging will they still have for this place? “Without its people, the special administrative region will not be special any more, and one country, two systems cannot be sustained.” Additional reporting by Minnie Chan