Beijing sent team of mainlanders to study law in Portugal, placed them in top Macau jobs after return to China
- Twelve sent for law studies before 1999 handover, because city ‘did not have enough talent for civil service’
- Mainlanders helped boost gambling hub’s leadership and ensure smoother transition than Hong Kong’s
Eight years before Macau returned to Chinese rule in 1999, Beijing sent at least a dozen mainland legal experts to Portugal to learn the language and legal system so they could take top government posts in the gambling hub.
It is a story that has long circulated in Macau political circles and among those familiar with the former Portuguese colony, but never confirmed.
Now a source with direct knowledge has told the Post that the episode helped ensure a successful transition after the return of the city, which has had a smoother post-handover era than Hong Kong, which was given back by the British two years earlier.
The source said Beijing was worried there would not be enough local legal talent in the Macau civil service after the handover, so it arranged through a Macau educational organisation for the group to enrol at the University of Coimbra, Portugal’s oldest university, in 1991.
All 12 were born and raised on the mainland and had not lived in Macau before going to Portugal, the source said, but they were given Macau identity cards because the plan was supported by the city’s Portuguese government. The group, all previously trained in law, studied the European country’s legal system, which would remain in Macau after the handover of December 20, and its language, which would continue in official use.