Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday released a report on US democracy, exposing the deficiencies and abuse of democracy in the US as well as the harm of it exporting such democracy.
Ahead of the US-initiated summit for democracy, China has consecutively issued a white paper on Chinese democratic model and a report on US democracy, which not only defends China's own democratic achievements but also warns of the disastrous effects of the US' democratic mess on the world, said Chinese experts. They described the report as timely and to the point.
It is hoped that the US will improve its own system and practices of democracy and change its way of interacting with other countries, said the report, noting that this is in the interest of not only the American people, but also the people of other countries.
The report pointed the US system is fraught with deep-seated problems and the US democracy has become "a game of money politics," the US has "one person one vote" in name, which is however"rule of the minority elite" in reality; the checks and balances have resulted in a "vetocracy," and the flawed electoral rules have impaired fairness and justice, and the dysfunctional democracy has triggered a trust crisis.
The report also mentioned the messy and chaotic features of US democracy, including the capitol riot that shocked the world, entrenched racism, tragic mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening wealth gap and the "freedom of speech" in name only.
Also, the report bashed the disastrous consequences of US' practice of exporting democracy. The "color revolutions" have undermined regional and national stability, the US imposition of its style of democracy has caused humanitarian tragedies, the abuse of sanctions has breached international rules, and the "beacon of democracy" has drawn global criticism, according to the report.
Democracy is a common value shared by all humanity, said the report. It is a right for all nations, not a prerogative reserved for a few. Democracy takes different forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all model. It would be totally undemocratic to measure the diverse political systems of the world with a single yardstick or examine different political civilizations from a single perspective. The political system of a country should be independently decided by its own people, the report said.
The report pointed out that the US'system of democracy is derived from its own practices, noting this system is unique, not universally applicable, and it is far from perfect. However, over the years, the US, despite the structural flaws and problematic practice of its democratic system, has claimed itself as the "model of democracy." It has incessantly interfered in other countries' internal affairs and waged wars under the guise of "democracy," creating regional turbulence and humanitarian disasters, the report said.
One day after China released its white paper on the country's democratic model, China issued another report on US democracy, which not only explains what China's democracy is but also tells the world that China understands what the US democracy is. The US is far from a "beacon of democracy" and has nothing worth showing off given the chaotic American society, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.
At a time when the whole world needs to work together to fight the pandemic, recover economically and care for the vulnerable, the US is hosting such a useless summit based on ideological boundaries which targets China, Russia and some other countries and regions. It reflects the US' Cold War mentality and exposes that the country is playing a divisive role in the world,Lü said, criticizing the upcoming US democracy summit.
How many evils have been committed in the name of
democracy?
Exporting wars, launching "color revolutions," fomenting extremist
ideologies, and promoting economic instability...the US has left
countless trails of bloodshed and turmoil around the world. While the
"model of democracy" lose its shine, the US still attempts?to establish
exclusive cliques through ...
` ` MAN and nature are running out of time. That’s
the core message of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
...
Moral vacuum at the heart of modernity, now embodied in US laws!
` In short, historically it was the Church that gave the moral blessing
for colonisation, slavery and genocide during the Age of Globalisation.
The tragedy is that the Doctrine of Discovery is now embodied in US
laws.
Ambassador Chen Xu, permanent representative of China to the United Nations office in Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland, speaks during the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights
Council. Photo: Liu Xin/GT
Human rights are currently the most prominent "battleground" between China and the US. The latter has rallied its allies and made the Xinjiang issue the main focus of its attacks. At the recent United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council meeting, Canada, on behalf of 41 countries, slammed China on the human rights situation in Xinjiang, while Belarus, on behalf of 65 countries, supported China. In total, more than 90 countries have expressed support to China in various ways. This is the latest microcosm of this increasingly heated struggle.
We believe that the US and its main allies have no chance of winning this "human rights war" against China. At this Human Rights Council meeting, despite the high profile of the US and its allies, the countries supporting China greatly outnumber those that followed the steps of the coalition led by Washington. The pattern of the long-term struggle will not change. Moreover, since the attacks from the US and its alliance aim at China, a wrong target, they will not only find they are fighting a unwinnable war, t will also particularly demonstrate their isolation because they do not have justice on their side. Thus, it further breaks their human rights card and makes it even more ineffective.
The fundamental reason is because their definition of human rights is narrow and West-centered, and they have tried outrageously to make their definition universal, which is in stark contrast to the reality of developing countries. This poses a realistic threat and challenge to those countries' order and development pace. Such being the case, it has sparked dissatisfaction and been inevitably resisted by people around the world.
The meaning of human rights is abundant. Different people have varied human rights concerns. The "human rights card" played by the West against developing countries has limited focus on "exaggerated personal political rights". In the process, the West acknowledges only their own social order as legitimate and reasonable, and refuses to recognize that the social order in developing countries is the basis for realizing development and progress
What is the largest gap between developing countries and Western ones? From the standpoint of developing countries, the biggest gap lies in economic development and living standards. So most developing countries emphasize constant improvement of people's livelihood. But as for Western countries like the US, they use their own governance model to judge personal political rights in developing countries, trying to distract those countries and disrupt their agenda.
Worse, the West has become extreme in this regard. As a result, US-led countries have even demanded individuals' sabotaging moves as actions to practice political freedom in developing countries. The double standards that the international community detests have been formed.
The world has been sick of such a human rights card. Therefore, China's move to hit back such a card of the US and the West has been welcomed across the world. In the past decades, China has made remarkable achievements in development, while simultaneously making widely known improvements in human rights. During this period, the Chinese model has become more attractive, and China has become more convincing in its human rights narratives. The era when the West dominated human rights affairs has gone. Now, China and other developing countries are more confidently practicing their own human rights construction.
By taking the lead to aggressively hype anti-China
topics recently, especially by releasing a joint statement on China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Canada will benefit nothing but only
further damage ties with China while exposing its own hypocrisy and
double ...
A scholar from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, whose photo has been used by anti-China forces to
weave lies of people being “missing and detained,” attended the 47th
session of the United Nations Human Rights Council via video link ...
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
kicked off his Europe trip on Tuesday, less than two weeks after
President Joe Biden ended his trip to the continent with an agenda
concentrated on countering China.
China does not accept the West's narrow definition of
human rights. Chinese people do not buy into the forces that are
“fighting” for our human rights. The only thing we want to say is:
please stay away from China and the Chinese people.
China is the most populous developing country in the world. It is very difficult to realize collaborated progress among various sectors. With a limited budget, China has multiple tasks at the same time - it has to encourage developing high-tech abilities, expand room and provide driving forces for social advancement, at the same time strive to improve people's livelihood, and input social fairness into the top design of national strategies.
For a long time, some people believe China has not done enough to balance these developments. Voices have existed that China invested excessive resources to fields such as aerospace. Despite difficulties, compared to other countries, China has tried its best to reach a balance and has achieved positive results.
Since China implemented the reform and opening-up policy, the most prominent and well-known national goal has been achieving a moderately prosperous society. People's livelihood and fairness and justice have always been the focus of attention in Chinese society. A technology-centered national strategy and people-oriented economic development have highly integrated.
In the past few decades, the Chinese people have been developing the aerospace field, but their livelihood has also been improving. The lunar exploration project is not a political vanity project - it is well within the ability of Chinese society.
The progress in high-tech areas such as aerospace has pushed up China's strategic competitiveness overall. At the same time, people are living better lives. Without the advancement in high-tech areas, China's prosperity would lack the backbone and long-term guarantee.
As an emerging major power, China's per capita GDP is not the highest among developing countries. But China's major scientific progress in recent years is undoubtedly the most prominent among developing countries and general developed countries. China is a large country, and this has exerted its unique incubation advantages in promoting major technological progress. This is gratifying.
China has long implemented a market economy, but has maintained the guiding role of the government. This prevents our market economy from repeating and hovering at a low level, and also prevents us from being satisfied with the low-end prosperity of the global value chain. The Chinese nation's self-motivated spirit continues to release momentum, successfully supported by the country's system. Thus, we can move forward in a balanced manner and with a clear sense of direction.
China has not regarded technological development or achievements in aerospace as an overriding goal. Nor has China formed a circle of high-tech elites, separating from the general Chinese public or even leading to the division of the rich and poor. Compared with China, today's aerospace engineering in India is relatively difficult. But it is the Indian people's choice to explore the Moon and Mars no matter how difficult it is.
China's high-tech development still has a long and arduous way to go. We may need to devote more resources to cutting-edge technologies such as aerospace.
Frankly, the Chinese public has principled support for this, but such support has not been fully transformed into preferential treatment of high-tech industries and talent in these fields. There is still a lot of room for us to continue our efforts in this area.
As for China's modernization, it is an indispensable basic progress for our aerospace technology to reach world-class levels. There are unlimited possibilities in space, and most resources that support the human being's future development must be outside the Earth. We need to travel to space step by step, and our good, fair and just social governance will provide strength for this. Our ambitions and dreams will encourage perseverance. Chang'e-5 is just the beginning.
Closely following the complete success of Chang'e-5 lunar
sample return mission on Thursday, China's National Space
Administration (CNSA) disclosed plans for a slew of ambitious space
projects that include a new three-step plan for the country's future
moon and deeper space exploration missions, which Wu Yanhua, the CNSA
deputy head, referred to as "surveying, constructing, and exploiting,"
as opposed to the already conquered goals of "orbiting, landing and
returning" to the Earth's natural satellite.
With Chang'e-5 probe making a perfect conclusion to its
23-day journey to the moon, bringing back soil from Earth's celestial
neighbor, Central China's Hunan Province, the hometown of the late .
The victim families want the trial of these soldiers to
take place inside Afghanistan where the crime happened. We are
condemning this brutal act of Australian soldiers.
Australian gov't should apologize to Afghan people:
https://youtu.be/zkQctV1h0R4
China refutes Australia's accusation of tweeting "fake image"
https://youtu.be/GOU6fy7awWc
https://youtu.be/YtL2NpQZM6o
Killing of Afghan civilians by Australian soldiers confirmed, who should apologize?
https://youtu.be/K13x_9pazeM
https://youtu.be/zSzWN74EQeA
Australia's war of words with China over a satirical cartoon that condemned Australian troops' murder of innocent Afghans is ongoing. As more reports reveal the elite Australian soldiers' misconduct in Afghanistan, Australia is increasingly embarrassed.
Some of Australia's allies have engaged in this war of words, and arrogantly talk only about their stance and principles rather than the facts.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on November 18 phoned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express his "deepest sorrow." And one day later, Australian Defence Force Chief Angus Campbell said, "I sincerely and unreservedly apologize" to the people of Afghanistan. However, Morrison refused to accept China's criticism but vented his anger as if China had groundlessly smeared his country.
The logic behind Morrison's moves is quite simple: The West can do anything it wants, but non-Westerners are not allowed.
This is the consistent style of Western whites: The West must always be in a superior status and position. With such a mentality, they never accept the idea that other races can enjoy equality. Feeling superior to others, they believe the West must take control of each and every thing, be it the economy or technology.
Morrison didn't say anything when European and American media outlets reported Australian troops' misconduct with words like "war crimes" (as the criticism came from the West). But he reacted fiercely when a Chinese diplomat condemned the brutal murder.
In the eyes of some Western elites, adopting a non-Western system and ideology and refusing to be a vassal of the West is the sin of China. Brainwashed by such discourse, many ordinary people in the West would buy Western politicians' lies about China, even though the COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands in the West while vulnerable groups cannot "breathe."
As a result, any action and word of China is unacceptable to Westerners who have an overwhelming sense of superiority. To them, the West can stigmatize China over the so-called human rights issues with disinformation and accuse China of "genocide," but China is not even allowed to give its opinion on the viral reports circulating in the West.
After 160 years, the bronze horse head stolen by invading forces when Anglo-French Alliance Forces razed the Old Summer Palace in 1860 finally returned to its home on Tuesday. But many Westerners still believe that China is the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society that they arbitrarily bullied in the 19th century.
As they cannot hold colonies anymore, they attempt to spiritually colonize others with their so-called universal values of democracy and human rights. However, the West's narrow-minded moralistic tricks cannot last except in deceiving Westerners.
As China rises, more and more developing countries will not accept to be brainwashed by the West anymore. Nor will they stay silent and tolerate the West's double standards on human rights and other issues.
In the future, more people like Chinese cartoonist Wuheqilin and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian will stand out to tell the truth to the world and have dialogue with the West on a completely fair and equal status.
The world construct has greatly changed. Whether or not the West will accept it, the belief the West is the center of the world will eventually come to an end.
Until today, Australia still believes China is inferior,
not qualified to criticize the superior Aussies. Nothing can better
portray the mentality when Australia showed much greater anger toward a
Chinese cartoon than the crimes of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Those countries hope that China will resign itself to
their provocation and suppression. Otherwise, they would believe that
China has become tougher or even a “Wolf Warrior.” Just let them bluff,
and let us stay magnanimous.
It is a 100-percent fact that Australian troops brutally
killed Afghan civilians. Australia should tell the Afghans and the world
how many people its troops have killed and how they will be held
accountable for it. What's happening in the real world is much more
brutal, bloody and frightening than what my cartoon shows.
Killing innocent people is trampling on human rights no
matter what. But Canberra has the nerve to put itself on the moral high
ground of human rights. How arrogant and shameless the Morrison
government is!
Take a look at what is happening in the Five Eyes
countries. The US and the UK are both among the countries hit hardest by
COVID-19, and both have deep domestic conflicts and long-term
uncertainties. Canada and Australia, with their small populations and
vast land resources, are more like “Western slackers” than the European
countries who have strong crisis awareness. They all need to see where
their crisis lies and who their real enemies are. Otherwise, they will
always have a misconception that China is poisoning them whenever they
are not feeling well. How absurd such a logic is!
Taking sides with the US over China has cost Australia
valuable diplomatic flexibility. Australia has been smashed between two
rocks instead of milking both sides.
Passing the legislation is Australia's domestic affair
and China has no interest to intervene. But if the Australian federal
government uses this act to jeopardize China's interests, China will do
everything it can to safeguard its own interests.
The West should take the latest incident as an alarm bell
– when they smear other countries with baseless accusations, why can't
other countries criticize the West or make well-intentioned suggestions
for their misdeeds?
Amid an escalating war of words around a cartoon
depicting atrocities committed by Australian soldiers against Afghan
civilians, an Australian who has lived in China for 10 years has
something to say: "Today, as an Australian, I feel ashamed. The
Australia I left 10 years ago compared to the Australia of today is
entirely different."
Amid a vortex of worsening bilateral ties between
Australia and China and tightened immigration policies, complicated by
the ravages of pandemic, many Chinese in Australia feel anxious and
disappointed in Prime Minister Scott Morrison's administration.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its World Report 2020 on Tuesday. Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, said in his speech that China has launched an assault on the international human rights system.
An NGO as it is, HRW has been openly coordinating with the US on its tough China policy. The organization's funding source and personnel structure have shown it will embed US national interests deeply into its goals. Roth once served as a US federal prosecutor. HRW's extreme antagonism toward China results from his prejudice and political stand.
The organization's main business is global human rights, but it seems it is unfamiliar with human rights conventions and standards under the UN system. The right to development - a human right that the UN stresses the most - is almost completely missed out in the latest HRW's report.
People like Roth are only suitable for talking big in New York's high society. If their interpretation of human rights is examined from the perspective of developing societies and emerging markets, people will easily find they are narrow-minded and paranoid. They are keen to show their sympathy for the lack of human rights in developing societies, but they have no idea what the most important thing is there.
It is acceptable to criticize China. But HRW has been propagating a huge lie by smearing China, a country where modern life has spread rapidly and people's living standards have been greatly raised. HRW has been living in an abnormal atmosphere of public opinion about China.
Have people like Roth ever visited Chinese cities and spoken with ordinary Chinese families? Have they ever been to the shopping malls and streets that have sprung up all over China, and talked with ordinary Chinese people there? Have they left nightclubs and walked back to the hotel at night in China? Is China's human rights system the worst in the world? Are they talking about human rights or the privileges of the very few followers of the US value?
The life span of the Chinese people is becoming longer. Conditions of food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, public health services and provisions for the aged have been improved. Pollution has been effectively controlled. Chinese people have become the main force of global tourism and studying abroad. China's internet is also one of the most developed worldwide. These have formed the basis of the continuing development of China's human rights.
China is different from the US and the West politically. Thus, China has its own characteristics in political participation and governance of public opinion. The Chinese system supports the country's development. Our system does not threaten that of the West and should gain respect from the West.
Some extreme Western political elites have attacked China violently for geopolitical purposes. People like Roth are not really advocating the general advancement of human rights, but are following the needs of US politics. They are tarnishing the great human rights cause of mankind, and should be ashamed of it.
People like Roth should go deep into a huge society like China and really understand what is going on there and what people really care about. The likes of Roth should seriously study the world, not arrogantly represent the world.
HRW report reflects Western elites’ hypocrisy: analysts
Experts attend a side-event on China's human rights protection of ethnic
minorities amid the 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council in
Geneva, Switzerland, July 2, 2019.
Criticizing China for "suppressing" human rights is the card that the West has been playing for decades. This reflects the hypocrisy and deep ignorance of arrogant Western elites who cannot give an objective assessment of other countries' situations, analysts said on Wednesday, in response to the latest report of nongovernmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Watch which deemed China as a global threat to human rights development.
In its 335-page World Report 2020, the New York-based NGO claimed that China is now a global threat to human rights. Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, claimed that the country is also using its "growing economic clout to silence critics and to carry out the most intense attack on the global system for enforcing human rights since that system began to emerge in the mid-20th century."
Roth was banned from entering Hong Kong on Sunday, about a month after the HRW was sanctioned by the Chinese central government for their "horrible activities" in instigating the months-long riots in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
The NGO, which claims it does not receive funds from the government, releases human rights reports every year, evaluating the global system for protecting human rights. However, many of its officials and members are former US federal government officials, and the NGO has been using its right to speak to export the ideological tendency, Chinese analysts said.
"To judge other countries at will by ignoring the facts is their way of doing things," an analysts close to a government-related think tank who preferred not to be named, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, another NGO, Freedom House, said in its latest report that Chinese media's overseas expansion posed "serious implications for the survival of open, democratic societies."
Rioters set up barricades on streets to block traffic in Hong Kong on Jan. 1, 2020. (Xinhua)
Long-term ignorance
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that HRW's China-related remarks, including its report, are devoid of facts and paint white as black, and that there is no need to discuss it.
"These two organizations have been viewing China from distorted views for a long time. Their China-related comments always ignore facts with no objectivity," Geng Shuang, spokesperson of Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference.
"The state of the human rights situation in China is in the best of times," he noted.
Some China-related topics HRW highlighted in its 2020 report have appeared in previous reports, including criticism over so-called repressions of Uygur people, tightening controls on freedom of expression and the erosion of HKSAR's freedom. Also, HRW has always been enthusiastic about criticizing other countries and regions as well as paying close attention to topics on juridical fairness, racial discrimination, extortion, and confessions by torture.
Its 2020 report has also adopted the same biased way of depicting "old stories" with new arguments. For example, in the Hong Kong chapter, HRW claimed that a large number of protesters acted peacefully, but the police used excessive force by intentionally ignoring the legitimacy of police law enforcement.
This is not the first time HRW pointed its finger at other countries' internal affairs, coming up with reports filled with biased views and false evidence. It ignored cases of police beating African-Americans to death in the US or the infamous abuse of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, according to a letter jointly released in May 2014 by more than 130 scholars, mostly from the US, criticizing the HRW. Singapore's Ministry of Law also refuted the NGO criticism of proposed fake news laws in 2019 in Singapore.
The letter, calling on HRW to close its revolving door to the US government, noted that many members of the HRW are former CIA agents and former US officials. The organization's standard on human rights is in accordance with US diplomatic policies and interests, thus damaging its credibility and independence.
"It also reflects the lack of oversight of NGOs in international law. For example, what criteria does HRW use to evaluate human rights in other countries?" the analyst said, noting that it seriously undermines the joint efforts of other countries in the field of human rights.
A rioter starts a fire on a Hong Kong street corner. Photo: Cui Meng/ GT
Politically driven
Chinese analysts also noted that the funding and membership of the NGO linked it close to the US government, although it claims to be nongovernmental, and its goal is to work for the country's national interests.
A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth used to serve as a federal prosecutor, whose perception of China's human rights is embedded with hostility and political bias.
"They've been watching and criticizing other countries based on their understanding and idea of the West's concept of human rights. China has its own human rights concept, formulated on our social, economic and cultural background. But the Chinese concept was often disregarded by those NGOs," another anonymous expert told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Human rights include, first and foremost, the right to life, subsistence and development, the Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary in 2019. When HRW criticized China's Xinjiang policy, it turned a blind eye to the region, which used to fall victim to violent terrorist attacks that has killed innocent people but has been developing into a peaceful and prosperous place.
Its perception of China's human rights status also reflects the hypocrisy and arrogance of provocative Western elites, analysts said.
Though these NGOs claim to be politically neutral, it is impossible for them to completely ignore the political background and stance of Western countries, He Zhipeng, a professor of international human rights and legal education at Jilin University in Northeast China, told the Global Times.
"They usually take Western culture as the basis or ideological fortress, and always stand on the basis of the Western human rights ideology to observe and criticize other countries, while China's socio-economic and cultural background is often unheard in their investigation," he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (front C) and his wife Peng Liyuan (behind
Xi) walk on the red carpet in front of outgoing Macao Chief Executive
Fernando Chui (C) and incoming chief executive Ho Iat Seng (blue tie)
after Xi and his wife's arrival at the Macau International Airport in
Macao on Wednesday, ahead of celebrations for the 20th anniversary of
the handover from Portugal to China. Photo: AFP :
The inauguration of the fifth-term government will be
held Friday morning followed by Xi's meeting with newly inaugurated
judicial and administrative officials.
Macao's landmark Ruins of St. Paul. Photo: VCG
China's ambassador to UK says Macao can show Hong Kong way forward
The success of Macao's "One Country, Two Systems" will "light up the
path forward for Hong Kong," said Liu Xiaoming, China's top envoy to the
UK, during a banquet at the Chinese embassy in London to celebrate the
20th anniversary of Macao's return to China. #HK
https://youtu.be/1RET1xuvHzA
Macao in Transition: Witness to History / Macao in Transition: Rising Stars
https://youtu.be/0Us2YHIMtoA
HK, Macao share more differences than similarities
Hong Kong and Macao, China's two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) practicing the "one country, two systems" principle, share more differences than similarities, while Hong Kong's social turbulence offers Macao a lesson, observers and analysts said.
From the former Portuguese colony to the world's gaming hub, Macao is poised to become the richest place, overtaking Qatar with the highest per capita gross domestic product on a purchasing power parity basis by 2020. The small city, with a land area of 32.9 square kilometers, has seen its economic growth skyrocket by over 700 percent over the past two decades and become a city with high social welfare.
While Macao is embracing the 20th anniversary celebration of its return to China, it has been praised again for setting a good example of implementing the "one country, two systems" principle, especially as Hong Kong, which returned to the motherland two years before Macao, has been engulfed in months of anti-government protests.
During President Xi Jinping's visit to Macao from Wednesday to Friday to attend events marking the 20th anniversary of Macao's return, he is expected to announce a series of favorable policies aimed at diversifying the city's gaming-dependent economy into a financial center, according to media reports. And such a move is considered as a reward to Hong Kong's neighboring city for avoiding anti-government protests, according to observers, and some suggested that promoting Macao as a new financial center could be an alternative to Hong Kong.
However, former officials and experts claimed that though the two SARs shared common ground such as a high-degree of autonomy, judicial independence and freedom of the press, they have differences in the way they handle relations with the central government and interpret the "one country, two systems" principle. Instead of simply labeling Macao a "good student" or "golden child" as the city is immune to anti-government protests spiraling next door, it should take a look at the fundamental reasons why the two cities are different from historical, cultural and social perspectives, local observers suggested.
Two SARs' differences
As Hong Kong protesters identify themselves as Hongkongers instead of Chinese, Macao people believe that rejecting their Chinese nationality unacceptable, Wu Zhiliang, president of the Macau Foundation, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"Macao people have a deep understanding of the word 'return'," Wu said, noting that it is not about changing the national flag, or shifting from the governor of Macao to chief executive of Macao SAR government, it is about integrating into the country's whole governance and strategic development plans.
Opposition groups in Hong Kong consider any move of the central government as intervention that erodes its high degree of autonomy, as the central government could not take any gesture, which is a misunderstanding of the "one country, two systems" principle, and is not accepted by people in Macao.
"When Macao comes up with new policies, it always takes the country's development plans into consideration," Wu said.
For instance, when the central government launched an anti-corruption campaign years ago, Macao imposed restrictions on cross-border financing involving Chinese funds, although it had heavily weighed on its pillar gaming industry, local representatives said.
"Compared to Hong Kong, there is no such mentality of worshiping Western political systems and social values here in Macao, though it has always been under the mixed influence of Eastern and Western cultures, and people treat those two equally," Wu said.
Unlike Hong Kong, which has been heavily influenced by the West, Macao has a stronger attachment to Chinese culture and values due to its "historical genes."
In the colonial period of Macao, Portuguese control had seen its influence over local communities declining, drawing a contrast with the relatively sophisticated way British authorities took in ruling Hong Kong before handing it over to China.
"There has been no strong cultural penetration of the West in Macao society, which had not been affected by Western social value either," Susana Chou, former president of the Legislative Assembly of Macao, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "For example, when the Hotel of Lisboa was inaugurated years ago, many people in Macao did not know where 'Lisboa' is. Could you image Hong Kong people not knowing where London is? " she asked.
While Hong Kong opposition lawmakers turned debates for rolling out policies into political battles, lawmakers in Macao are not against the Constitution, nor the Basic Law and the Communist Party of China, the former president said, noting that they would come up with different ideas to help roll out better policies.
"It's also inaccurate to say the Legislative Assembly of Macao is the SAR government's affiliate, as we also criticize our government officials a lot. And the assembly often rejects the proposals made by the government," Chou said, noting that the opposition is based on concrete arguments rather than disapproving everything because of its political stance.
Lesson to learn
Considering Macao's historical ties with the mainland, there has been no room for separatism, Wu noted. "But what has happened in Hong Kong would lead us to reflect on deep-rooted questions in Macao, particularly issues concerning Macao youth," he said.
Behind Hong Kong's chaos lie deep-seated social problems, as the majority of arrested radical protesters who trashed the rule of law were youngsters. Although Macao is not facing the same issue, the problems with Hong Kong youth could be seen as a warning sign for the city, observers said.
"We lack a fairer and transparent mechanism for Macao young people to climb toward upper society, and also the numbers of skilled positions are limited," Wu said, noting that the local talent policy is still protective.
"If Macao further opens up its market, could local youth become as competitive as talent from outside? And will talent inflow accelerate social conflicts and anxiety of local youth?" he asked.
While Hong Kong and Macao both share freedom of speech and an open internet, information has been circulating freely on social media and many Macao young people have been well informed about Hong Kong's social unrest for months. When the students were asked about questions on Hong Kong police brutality, many rationally discuss the matter with teachers instead of arguing with their peers and making one-sided judgments, Wu noted.
"Young people could easily influence each other, which is inevitable. It's up to how teachers and parents guide them," he said.
Macao has gained a higher degree of autonomy thanks to the confidence and trust of the central government, which, observers said, creates a positive cycle.
On the contrary, if Hong Kong's opposition groups continue to touch the redline of the central government, it might lead to reevaluation of political risks in Hong Kong by the central government and the expected political reforms could hardly make any progress in the city, observers said.
The virtuous cycle established between the central government and Macao as well as between Macao and the mainland could to some extent serve as a reference for Hong Kong, they noted.
In the past months, Chinese people have increasingly seen
the nature of Western democracy. It's time for the world to get a better
understanding of it.
Chinese society should neither secure the growth of 6
percent through strong stimulus nor accept the inertia of a growth rate
below 6 percent. We should take active and rational actions.
Losing ground: China’s spectacular rise has
affected Hong Kong’s thriving financial services industry, along with
development of port services. - Reuters