Eilo Yu on TDM Talk Show: Macau is a good place to test democracy in China

Professor Eilo Yu, programme coordinator of Public Administration at the University of Macau, appeared on TDM’s Talk Show this week and discussed the topics raised by the Chief Executive in his maiden Policy Address.
Professor Yu, who has been researching Macau’s political development and also the democratisation process in Hong Kong and Taiwan, said, ‘Macau would be a very good point for testing democracy in China territory.’
Expanding on this, Prof. Yu said that Macau could follow Taiwan’s lead. He said that while the initial introduction of democracy might see a one-party dominated democracy and therefore no real party rotation, ‘institutionally we have democracy and then gradually we can, in the case of Taiwan we can see... at the very beginning, once the KMT opened the regime and sooner and later there was a party rotation.’
Media reports following the Chief Executive’s Address have suggested that he played it safe and presented no new policies and gave very little details, however, Prof. Yu disagreed in part, saying ‘I can see that his report has some new ideas.’
He went on to say that the Chief Executive’s statement that ‘the housing market is not only a market for demand and supply, but also...a necessity to the people in order to improve their life,’ can be interpreted to read that ‘in some way it [the government] will do anything in order to fulfill this demand for the people.’
‘That means that on some occasions, or in a scenario, the government will do something to suppress the market or – not necessarily suppress, but stabilise the Real Estate market – in order to please the people of Macau.
Prof. Yu also discussed the impact of imported labour on the livelihood of locals. He said that imported labour, while necessary for the continued economic development of the territory, had a negative impact on the wages of local workforce and they in turn suffered again because of increased housing costs.
‘So in order to deal with the property problems, one of the major issues we have concern with is to revise or adjust the Imported Labour policy so that the local working forces can have a better salary and then they can share the social reward of our economic development,’ he said.
Touching on the government’s idea of a ‘sunshine government’ Prof. Yu said he supported the notion of government transparency and accountability, but said that it must ensure that it went further than merely disclosing information about officials’ personal assets.
‘When we look at the ideas of transparent governments, it has to deal with the issues of how the government discloses information and documents to the public. It’s not just talking about the personal assets or properties of officials,’ he said.
‘Certainly, I would say that this can help to prevent bribery and corruption inside the government, but it doesn’t mean it is the whole thing for anti-corruption.’
‘I think the Government has to do more to release information, to tell more about what it would like to do and how he would like to do it…’
He said that he was unsure of the ability of the new spokesperson system to assist in the transparency, as his initial experience had not been satisfactory. ‘I think this has a lot of room for improvement,’ he said. Over the past month Prof. Yu said his experience with the system left him thinking that ‘the spokesman seems to be just only speaking the script, instead of answering questions to the media.’
He said if it continued in this way then the system would be of no help in improving communications between the public and the government.
Prof. Yu also discussed the issue of democracy for Macau. He said that Macau looks to Hong Kong’s development and although the SAR’s are separate, ‘we cannot ignore the fact that Hong Kong does have some effect on Macau’s politics.’ Prof. Yu said that as Hong Kong moves towards universal suffrage, Macau’s people would begin to ask questions about how they can reform the political institutions.
‘I think Macau is quite similar to Hong Kong and Taiwan in terms of the development of politics, if we compare about Hong Kong and Taiwan, we can see that economic development actually triggered pressure for political reform.’
‘Better economy and better economic development will push the people to demand more, politically,’ he said.
‘I cannot say that we will follow the way of Hong Kong and Taiwan’s people, but we can say that that if economic development will pressure or push people to participate in politics, I would say that Macau people will be more active in politics, and then this will generate a driving force as to push a political reform.’