DOGABK
CONFIDENTIAL
VISIT TO HONG KONG BY LORD GLENARTHUR, 16-19 SEPTEMBER
BACKGROUND BRIEF I: MACAU
1.
Macau has existed as a trading post at the mouth of the Pearl
River far longer than Hong Kong. It has been under Portuguese administration for over 400 years. Following the Portuguese
revolution in 1974, the Portuguese offered to restore Macau to
China immediately, but the Chinese refused saying the time was not
yet ripe. In 1979, the Portuguese and PRC Governments reached a
formal and confidential understanding that Macau was Chinese
territory under Portuguese administration for the time being.
2.
Following the conclusion of the Hong Kong agreement, the
Chinese turned their attention to Macau and opened negotiations on its future with the Portuguese in 1986. Following nine months of
negotiations, a Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration on the Question of
Macau was signed in Peking on 13 April 1987 by the Chinese Premier,
Zhao Ziyang, and the Portuguese Prime Minister, Cavaco Silva. It
provides for Macau, like Hong Kong, to become a Special
Administrative Region of the PRC. The Macau SAR will be established
on 20 December 1999.
3.
The Macau Joint Declaration is very similar to the Joint
Declaration on Hong Kong. Most of the differences between the provisions of the two are fairly minor or arise from objective
differences between Hong Kong and Macau, for example in relation to
the judicial and financial systems. 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. The Portuguese seemed concerned mainly with ensuring a "dignified" departure in which
residual Portuguese cultural and linguistic influence could remain
intact. They have apparently succeeded in this objective to the
extent that the Macau agreement contains clauses promising respect for Portuguese customs, culture and language. One major objective
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