TNAG-1627-FCO40-2241-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Macau-1987 — Page 30

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CONFIDENTIAL

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Our task, however staggering, is small beer compared to that facing Macau. If Macau is to preserve its present life style and its current social and economic systems, its needs must have its present Portuguese legal framework and current Portuguese administrative grooves.

The present civil service in Macau consists of about 8,500 persons. Of those 525 are expatriates from Portugal including most of the 21 filling posts of Secretaries and Heads of Departments. The Macanese, in the main, occupy posts junior to expatriates and the local Chinese are only now beginning to fill posts at the level of shop-floor supervisors. Very few have completed secondary education and though they understand some Portuguese and speak a few words, they are not literate in the language. 25 have been sent last month for a year's study of language and public administration in Portugal. Another 25 will follow this month. A senior Macau official has stated that they will need to have 240 local professionals with Portuguese qualifications from whom 21 are to fill the top posts.

The local Chinese in Macau have not in the past 41⁄2 centuries evinced any interest in learning Portuguese. It is difficult to see how they will be able to be motivated to do in 12 years what took most incumbents twice that period. The University of East Asia, the main institution of tertiary education in Macau, is essentially a second class British-fashioned university whose degrees the United Kingdom does not recognize. They have undertaken to do their part in preparing Macau's future administrators, though so far they have only three Portuguese lecturers on their staff.

The Macau leftist press regard the period as adequate on the ground that Macau is a small place and hence easy to administer. But professional qualifications reinforced by sufficient experience take just as long to acquire regardless the size of the area where such quali- fications and experience are going to be put into use.

Since the court of final appeal will be in Macau, the judiciary will have to be served by metropolitan Portuguese for at least 20 years. This assessment is based on the assumption that Macau's local lawyers will show greater interest in joining the judiciary than their Hong Kong counterparts have so far shown - an assumption without reasonable basis.

CONFIDENTIAL

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