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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