Macao Knows Change Is Coming : Free-Style Casino Resort Warily Awaits Peking Rule

Father Domingos Lam, vicar general of the Roman Catholic diocese of Macao, sat in his office recently, contemplating the uncertain future of his church when this four-century-old Portuguese enclave becomes part of China.

“We have to face a new horizon. We are no longer in a colonial system,” said Lam, 57, an urbane, garrulous Hong Kong-born Chinese who admits to having laid down an occasional dollar or two at Macao’s gaming tables. “We have to open our minds a little further. What I hope is everything will run by law (under Chinese rule).”

Yet eager as he is for an accommodation with China, the vicar general is willing to go only so far. A picture of Pope John Paul II hangs on his office wall, and Lam told a visitor that he is not planning to take it down despite Peking’s efforts to create a “patriotic” Chinese Catholic Church independent of the Vatican.

“There is no Catholic Church without the Pope,” Lam said. “. . . If you got to go to prison, then you got to go to prison. So many people martyr for their faith in the world, and Macao is no exception.”

Throughout Macao, there are thousands of people like Lam, preparing for the changes that may come when this six-square-mile blend of Mediterranean architecture, Las Vegas-style casinos and Chinese back alleys is governed by Peking, rather than by Lisbon.

Macao will be probably the first test of the Chinese concept of “one country, two systems”--the doctrine of official tolerance for different ways of life that China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, devised in negotiating the eventual return of Hong Kong to China.

Two months ago, China announced that it is ready to begin talks with Portugal concerning the future of Macao, thus indicating its willingness to take control here. For the last two decades, Portugal has offered to vacate the colony, but until recently, China politely turned down the offers.

Once, Macao was the center of all European trade and contact with East Asia. These days, it survives mainly as a tourist resort and a freewheeling weekend getaway for residents of Hong Kong, an hour’s jetfoil ride away. Roughly a third of Macao’s income comes from tourism brought in mostly by its gambling casinos and other forms of nightlife.

Chinese officials have suggested that they intend to apply the “one country, two systems” concept to Macao just as they will in Hong Kong. But no one knows for sure how much China will be willing to accept, and the denizens of Macao’s nightlife are getting ready to defend their turf.

“We are a monument here now. We are an institution,” asserted Jerome Steph, director of the “Crazy Paris” review-- a show in which, after five minutes, women begin to appear on stage clad only in boxing gloves.

There is no fixed lease between China and Portugal for Macao, such as the one under which the British will govern Hong Kong until 1997. The Portuguese settled Macao peacefully in the mid-16th Century and have stayed on, more or less at the sufferance of the Chinese, ever since.

Now that China has signaled that it wants Macao back, there are many who believe that the Portuguese flag may come down here well before Britain’s Union Jack descends in Hong Kong. In fact, Macao may well be used as a proving ground in which the Communist regime will seek to reassure Hong Kong of its ability to run a place that is radically different from the rest of China.

The negotiations over Macao’s future will open next year. China has not yet said exactly when it wants the changeover to take place or whether it will give the people of Macao the same detailed list of guaranteed economic and civil liberties that Hong Kong received.

Last month, Ji Pengfei, head of China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, told a group of Macao businessmen that the Sino-British pact for Hong Kong “cannot simply be copied” for Macao.

But Macao officials believe that the colony needs many of the same economic assurances. “It’s reasonable to suppose that people who invest in Macao will need some guarantees,” said Luis Filipe Ferreira Simoes, chief economic adviser to the government of Macao. In addition to its tourist and gambling income, Macao earns money from the export of textiles, toys and artificial flowers.

A Casual Mind-Set

Beyond the continuation of Macao’s capitalist system, officials here are also hoping for something else--a preservation of the laissez faire attitude that has long prevailed in this haven for adventurers and drifters.

“It’s not a question of just keeping the casinos, but of keeping everything else that comes with the casinos, a different way of life,” said Rufino Ramos, deputy director of Macao’s Department of Tourism.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of gambling to Macao. It is so imbedded in the colony’s folkways that the Portuguese governor ushers in each Chinese New Year with a visit to the casinos. The revenue from gambling alone make up 30% of the territory’s $100-million budget.

Across the border, China’s Communist regime has been trying its best for 36 years to eradicate the millennia-old Chinese passion for gambling. Last month, when investors in China’s special economic zone of Shenzhen dared to open a casino, Chinese authorities closed it down in less than two weeks.

In Hong Kong, the British government continues to restrict gambling to make sure that it does not offend the Chinese regime. Horse-race betting is permitted but casinos are banned. And the British recently formed a working group to discuss a possible clampdown on a new teen-age craze--video mah-jongg. Critics say it is a form of gambling because winning players are rewarded with a video-screen picture of a young woman disrobing.

Dog Races, Jai Alai

Early this month, Li Hau, another official of China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, told Macao journalists that the colony will be able to keep its gambling casinos, dog tracks and jai alai after the Portuguese leave. That statement was widely reported here and buoyed the hopes of Macao residents.

But the uncertainty lingers, because no one can be sure who, besides Deng, can make policy for China. At one point during the Hong Kong negotiations, two Chinese officials asserted that no Chinese army troops will be stationed in Hong Kong after 1997. They were later overruled by Deng.

“When the Chinese come, I think we will go,” Jose Ibarrola, the Spanish-born captain of Macao’s jai alai players, said glumly. But one of his players, Las Vegas-born Andy Hearne, 26, who came to Macao from Tijuana, said: “If the Chinese came and kept the jai alai open, I wouldn’t leave. I guess a lot depends on Deng’s successor.”

Inevitably, the 400,000 residents of Macao are fast developing a personal stake in Chinese history and politics.

“I have been through the dynasties, over and over again,” Father Lam said. “Always, the first (Chinese) emperor tries to wipe away the past, to burn things down. And always the second emperor is good.” The allusion to the Chinese Communist eras of Mao Tse-tung and of Deng was left unspoken.

For the Portuguese, the prospect of losing Macao is not a happy one. No one here believes that Portugal could hold onto Macao in the face of Chinese opposition, but the emotional ties here are strong and the departure will be painful.

“I will feel sad about it,” a high-ranking Portuguese official said. “Not because of any imperial nostalgia, but because the Portuguese attitude to Macao has always been different from that toward (Portugal’s former African colonies) Mozambique or Angola.

“We have never been here strictly for economic interests. We’re the only Western people who have never had a war with China. I hope we can leave with dignity.”

No Mass Exodus Seen

Macao’s population is about 98% Chinese. But an estimated 100,000 Chinese residents of Macao have Portuguese nationality and passports. Unlike the Chinese residents of Hong Kong who were barred from moving to Britain, these people will have the right to emigrate to Portugal if they wish.

No one believes there will be a mass exodus, because Portugal is one of Europe’s poorest countries. In fact, Portuguese officials here say that even now, the exodus is in the reverse direction--from Portugal to Macao.

“Many people in Portugal still think of Macao as El Dorado, in the way they used to think of Brazil,” Handel de Oliveira, Macao’s communications director, said. “About 500 people in Portugal apply for every vacancy here.” Another official here said that wages in Macao are three times as high as those for the same jobs in Portugal.

When the Portuguese depart, they will leave behind a community of several thousand Mecanese--Portuguese-speaking Eurasians, who view themselves as a separate community here. Over the years, the Mecanese have had many political battles with Portuguese governors from Lisbon. Yet many of them, too, say they will be sorry to see the Portuguese go.

“It’s an administration we are used to--some ideals, some values we are after,” said Ramos, who is Mecanese.

Still, Ramos feels that the arrival of the Chinese may not be so bad. “I don’t think people come here because of which flag is flying. People come to Macao after gambling and for cultural reasons--seeking something which is different, which is interesting.”

Will Ramos himself stay on in Macao? “In principle, yes,” he said. “If it’s like what they (Chinese officials) promise, most of the people will stay.”