Macao's democracy movement: old and new generations
Ng, K.C. (1990), Democratic Faction (Minzhu Pai), Ching Win Publishing, Hong Kong
Sulu Ka-hou, S. (2014), The Day and Night of June 30: A Record of Macao's Social Movement, Huafai Publishing, Macau
Sulu Ka-hou, S. (Ed.) (2015), Withdrawal! Are You Still Remember, Kato Kung Publishing, Hong Kong
In interpreting Macao's democracy movement, the works from democrats and activist can shed light on what factors shape the political development in Macao. Antonio Ng Kwok Cheong's classic work Democratic Faction (Minzhu pai) and Sulu Sou Ka-hou's work The Day and Night of June 30: A Record of Macao's Social Movement and Withdrawal! Are You Still Remember? provide important insights for us to understand Macao's democracy movement. Ng's work adopted a social-organizational approach to analysis how different factions in the society are shaping Macao's political development. So's work is based on his experiences in the Anti-Chan Protest and Anti-Retirement Package Bill protests in 2014 to show how new tactics and new generations could be used to deal with Macao's democracy movement.
Ng's Democratic Faction has deep contributions to the study of Macao politics. First and foremost, he provided an important framework for us to understand Beijing's role in Macao since 1966. Ng's book lay out the role of Beijing's and Portuguese shift after the 12.3 Incident in 1966 and 4.25 Revolution in 1974. The 12.3 Incident was a riot that inspired from PRC's cultural revolution to fight against the Portuguese administration in Macao (Ng, 1990, pp. 131-134). This incident opened up the Pandora box that allow Beijing to exert influence to Macao. The 4.25 revolution refer to military coup in Portugal that result to the democratization in Portugal (Ng, 1990, pp. 131-134). This incident provided the opportunity for Beijing to maintain stable relations with Portugal and that result to Chinese active participation in Macao politics. Ng tried to show historical and contextual factors shaping the political development of Macao, allowing Beijing to exert control over Macao affairs. He provides a clear picture for us to understand the reasons why interest groups in Macao are dominated by the pro-Beijing government. Secondly, Ng's socio-organizational approach toward Macao democracy movement is a unique approach for us to understand the political realities of Macao. In his book, he asserted that Macao have three systems, including A system, B system and C system. A system represents pro-Beijing forces, B system represent the force which has close relations with the Vatican Church and C system represents the Macao-born Portuguese (Ng, 1990, pp. 135-142). Ng tried to provide a systemic analysis of how these systems would affect Macao's democracy movement, particularly showing the dominance of A system in Macao's political arena by supporting and controlling interest group financially. This could illustrate Beijing as an important actor to influence Macao's political development. His systematic analysis could allow people to understand the reason for Macao's democrats who utilize elections and electoral participation as a platform to gather public support. Thirdly, Ng's work allows others to have a general picture to understand the demands of Macao's democrats. In particular, he emphasizes “livelihood” issues and the role of democrats in dealing with “livelihood” issues, showing that the democratic strategy of competing with Beijing without trespassing Beijing's political red line. His remark on “livelihood issues” is significant in that it illustrates the pragmatic strategy to maintain influence within very limited political space.
The Day and Night of June 30: A Record of Macao's Social Movement written by Sou and Withdrawal! Are You Still Remember? edited by Sou also contributes to study the democracy movement in Macao. Firstly, these two works highlighted that poor government administration increases the people's awareness of politics. His experiences of these two movements allow and stimulate ordinary people understand Macao's social movement and its implications for Macao's democracy movement. Furthermore, these two works allow us to understand the new strategy of younger democrats to fight for democracy. In particular, they highlighted the role of independent interest groups to mobilize people in these two important movements in Macao's history. The anti-retirement package bill protest could be seen as one of the most radical protests after Macao's handover to Beijing. There were almost 20,000 people participating in the protest and many of them were mobilized through social media. It illustrated a new strategy for the new generation to maintain their influence in Macao where the political space for dissent and democratization is constrained. Sou's work also demonstrates Beijing's role in suppressing democrats through the use of legal tools and exaggerating them as a “threat” to national security. His perception of social movement can illustrate the further securitization on the part of Beijing in dealing with national security issue. Also, Sou's works allow us to have a deeper understanding on activist perceptions of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) government and the People's Republic of China (PRC) regime. In particular, it could easily identify some structural problem in Macao society with relations with Macao institution.
Comparing Ng's Democratic Faction with Sou's work The Day and Night of June 30: A Record of Macao's Social Movement and Withdrawal! Are You Still Remember? their arguments demonstrate philosophical, ideological and tactical differences between the old democrats and new democrats in their pursuit and struggle for democracy.
Philosophically speaking, Ng and Sou have two different ways to push for the democracy movement. Ng tends to be a moderate Democrat and sees livelihood issues as a necessary way to expert pressure on the MSAR government. So rather sees the MSAR government as having a legitimacy deficit and social movement can allow the democrats to garner public support from different spectrum and propel democratic change. Ng sees the democrats as having the critical role to change Macao's situation and their function in the legislature is to regulate and monitor the MSAR government to improve livelihood issues, thereby providing a fertile environment for democracy movement. Comparing with Ng, Sou's philosophy is much more idealistic and particularly focusing on the government administration. Sou believes that many Macao people are politically apathetic and undecided political orientation. As most interest groups are dominated by pro-government forces, Sou sees that obtaining support from these political apathetic Macao people would allow democrats to expand their supporters form different spectrum into the deeper fabric of the society. Unlike Ng who sees the need to solve livelihood issues as a perquisite for democracy movement, Sou regards the poor government administration as the main reason for giving the space for democrats to expand their supporters in the different strata of the society.
Ideologically speaking, Ng sees the democrats as having the role of avoiding clashes with Beijing's political red line while Sou sees democrats as having the responsibility to challenge both the MSAR government and Beijing. Ng believes that the democrats should be critical of the MSAR government and they should consider the limited political space in Macao as a constraint to prevent stimulating Beijing's nerve and psyche on it national security. Sou rather believes the democrats as having the normative role in resisting the current political institutions and propelling social movements to impose pressures on both MSAR and Beijing as to improve the local governance. Ng and Sou's different ideologies can demonstrate their divergence on how to deal with the issues relating to Beijing–Macao relations. Their differences also show that while the old democrats tend to use a pragmatic approach to deal with Beijing, the new democrats tend to adopt a more radical approach to counter the central authorities.
Tactically speaking, Ng sees electoral platform as of ultimate importance for democrats to obtain support from general public, whereas Sou sees political mobilization through the social media as a tactic to raise the political awareness of Macao people, particularly the young generation. Their tactical difference shows the divergence between old democrats and new democrats in how to consolidate their supporters. Ng as an old Democrat concentrates on using elections as a platform to obtain resources and dominate the political high ground in the legislature. However, his method cannot allow the democratic faction to become a dominant one in Macao's politics. His tactic is not effective and it is vulnerable to influence by Beijing's united front work, because Beijing has the intention to squeeze the political space of Macao's opposition. In particular, President Xi Jinping emphasizes the supremacy of national security issues. The old democrats face tremendous challenges from Beijing. Rather, Sou as a new Democrat is trying to attract more voters to participate in elections, and to mobilize them to support and consolidate the democratic faction. However, his radical action must alert Beijing's red line on national sovereignty and security, resulting in how the police in Macao attempted to suppress his activities. His radical actions were seen as undermining the development of civil society in Macao as democrats are still the minority in Macao's civil society. The tactical differences between Ng and Sou demonstrate the actual generational difference. Ng and Sou use different tactics to communicate with ordinary citizens as in order to maintain their influence in the political arena.
Their philosophical, ideological and tactical differences can show the democrats' generational variations. Their philosophical differences can be seen in their understandings of the role of democrats in expanding their support to different societal spectrum. Their ideological differences can be witnessed in the different attitudes toward Beijing's policy and position in Macao affairs. Their tactical differences are mainly highlighted by their varying strategies to influence, mobilize and politicize the society, with Ng being more moderate and Sou more radical. These divergent approaches are destined to produce internal splits and arguments. As such, it is crucial for the Macao democrats, including old and new generations, to reach consensus and make further compromises in dealing with the long path of Macao's democracy movement.
