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of constitutional and political development in Macau, compared
with Hong Kong. It is also possible that our current
difficulties with the Chinese over direct elections encouraged
them to be more restrictive where elections to the Macau SAR's
legislature are concerned.
b) The provisions on continued service by Portuguese and other
non-Chinese in the SAR Government are slightly more liberal than
the equivalent provisions on expatriates serving in the Hong
Kong SAR Government. This largely reflects the fact that in
Macau, unlike Hong Kong, there is currently only a very small
element of local participation in the public service. There is
likely to be a considerable problem in grooming suitable local
administrators to move into senior positions from 1999.
c)
In the Macau agreement, the provision on defence of the SAR is even briefer than that in the Hong Kong Agreement, stating simply that the central government shall be responsible for
defence. This leaves open the question of whether or not the
PLA will eventually be stationed in Macau. It does not directly
address the question of who will pay for the PLA and whether
they will have any role in the internal affairs of the SAR.
Hong Kong agreement specifies that military costs are for the
central government and that the PLA shall not interfere in the
SAR's internal affairs.
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d) The Macau agreement contains no sections on shipping and civil
aviation. This obviously reflects the fact that Macau is not a
major port and has no international air services.
3. It seems that the Chinese were prepared to move hardly at all from the provisions of the Hong Kong agreement, which they treated
throughout the negotiations as a blueprint for an eventual Macau
agreement. So did the Portuguese, to the point (so Ke Zaishaw told us) of trying to insist on including civil aviation provisions! Portuguese conducted the negotiations in an ill-prepared and
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