Hong Kong is a city that has only recently come under the control of the Chinese central government. Up until 1999 the city was a colony of the British Empire and in that year it was finally ceded over to China for good. Hong Kong is a city that has grown up around a free market economy for most of its development and for that reason it is one of the larger economic engines within the Chinese lands. The same is true for the city of Macau, even though the overall evolution of the area was quite a bit different from the evolution that Hong Kong went through in order to get where it is right now. Macau was a colony of Portugal until 1997 when it was handed over to China and almost since the start of the postmodern era it has been a gambling hub within Asia. A lot of the major gambling establishments in Asia are now within the city of Macau and it is certainly the premier tourism destination in Asia and arguably the second best in the world next to Las Vegas.
On the face of it, it does seem as though Hong Kong and Macau do not really have that much in common. However, there is one thing that both cities do have in common and that is that they have both suffered enormously under the current economic crisis that has swept around the globe with a startling amount of speed. Those that believed globalization was dead now have egg on their face at the prospect of just how fast the collapse occurred worldwide, but at the same point in time Hong Kong and Macau which are both economic powerhouses within the People’s Republic of China have felt the brunt of the crisis because of the fact that large sections of the economies of both cities are based within the hospitality and tourism industry, especially if you include the gambling venues in Macau inside the tourism industry which for most counting purposes is how statistics are compiled
After a fairly large amount of silence on the issue, Beijing has finally decided to act and have done so through financially backing both Hong Kong and Macau based businesses in an effort to help them get through the current financial crisis. For this reason, the central party has been praised for its efforts on the parts of representatives for both cities, but people that are watching the industry from a far and do not have cause to fear retribution on the part of the government for expressing dissenting views are painting a much different story of exactly what is going on.
In regards to the Macau issue specifically, criticism against the government has been quite merciless and rightfully so. While the economic downturn has been responsible for a large part of the decline in Macau, the policies of the federal government in China that restricted travel to Macau for people from the mainland and Hong Kong did a lot more damage in the short term by drying up Macau gambling revenue streams in a stunningly fast amount of time.
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