MACAU: BEIJING'S STEPPING STONE TO LUSOPHONES,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 000510

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DEPT FOR EAP AND EAP/CM
NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2033
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG CH MC HK
SUBJECT: MACAU: BEIJING'S STEPPING STONE TO LUSOPHONES,
TAIWAN AND THE VATICAN

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Classified By: E/P Section Chief Laurent Charbonnet; Reasons 1.4 (b, d)


1. (C) Summary: Professor Ivo Carneiro, Vice-Rector for
Research and International Relations at Macau's
Inter-University Institute, recently told us that Beijing's
goals for Macau include: (1) closer integration with the
Pearl River Delta, especially Zhuhai; (2) expanding trade
links with overseas Macau-Chinese emigrant communities; (3)
providing a stable platform for China's trade ties and
relations with Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) territories
around the world; and (4),facilitating improvement of
Sino-Vatican relations. He characterized the relationship
between the Macau and central governments as "Beijing speaks
and Macau listens." Moreover, although Macau's Catholic
Diocese has largely refrained from public involvement in
political issues, Carneiro opined that Macau's Catholic
Bishop, Jose Lai, is better positioned and "used more" than
Hong Kong's Cardinal Joseph Zen to build Sino-Vatican
relations. End Summary.


2. (C) Comment: Compared to Hong Kong, Macau has enjoyed a
generally smoother and less politicized relationship with
Beijing since its reversion. Although our contacts in Macau
are sometimes noticeably cautious when discussing matters
related to the mainland, officials, journalists, and
academics there also sometimes boast that their territory
enjoys better relations, better access, and more room to
maneuver than does Hong Kong. Furthermore, while Article 13
of Macau's Basic Law states that the Central People's
Government in Beijing, along with the Office of the
Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Macau,
"shall be responsible for the foreign affairs relating to
Macau," Macau's 450-year plus history as a colony of Portugal
makes the MSAR a logical and active socio-political bridge
between Beijing and Lusophone countries around the world.
End Comment.

Portuguese Links
--------------


3. (C) During a recent meeting in Macau, Vice-Rector and
Professor Ivo Carneiro de Sousa of the Inter-University
Institute in Macau (IIUM) discussed Macau,s usefulness to
the PRC for its relations with the Catholic Church and with
other Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nations. Carneiro told
us he and IIUM enjoyed close and cooperative relations with
both the Government of Macau, the Macau Diocese of the
Catholic Church, and officials of the PRC's liaison office in
Macau. IIUM, a collaboration between the Macau Diocese of
the Catholic Church and the Catholic University of Lisbon,
was created under a 1996 PRC-Portugal bilateral agreement.
With strong financial support from the church and the Macau
government, the institute is hoping to become Macau's first
research university. With construction of a new,
environmentally friendly campus on church-donated land in
northern Macau to begin shortly, IIUM hopes to sharply
increase its enrollment to 2,000 students by 2010. It also
plans to establish a branch campus just across the border in
Zhuhai.


4. (C) According to Carneiro, the PRC central government's
strategy for Macau includes the following elements: (1) Macau
should become more integrated economically with the Pearl
River Delta region of southern China, especially the adjacent
city (and Special Economic Zone) of Zhuhai; (2) Macau should
expand its economic and trade links with overseas Chinese
communities; (3) it should provide a stable platform for
China's trade ties and linkages with Lusophone
(Portuguese-speaking) territories around the world, including
Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe,
Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, and East Timor,
among others; and (4),Macau's Catholic diocese, which he
said was independent from the larger and more vocal Hong Kong
diocese, could be used to facilitate improvement of
Sino-Vatican relations. Carneiro did not expand upon the
first element, but went into considerable detail regarding
the other three.

Trade Platform with Lusophones
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5. (C) Carneiro discussed at length Macau's expanding

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overseas economic links and its presumed importance to the
PRC. He claimed the central government wanted to mobilize
"substantial" communities of Macau emigrants in the U.S.,
Canada, Europe, South America and other places, especially in
Portuguese-speaking locations, for the PRC's trade and
investment via Macau. Recent examples included PRC
investment in the fishing industry in Guinea-Bissau and banks
in Mozambique. Carneiro claimed the government had created a
"forum," under the PRC "Ministry of Trade" and financed by
the Government of Macau, to facilitate this economic
activity, which he said was increasing by sixty percent
annually. Macau also had signed bilateral taxation
agreements with several of the countries.


6. (C) Although Macau's 1999 reversion to the PRC induced
more than a few of its ethnically Portuguese residents to
relocate, and only about 2.1 percent of current residents
speak Portuguese, a comparatively high 7.6 percent of civil
servants in the Macau government claim that Portuguese is
their primary language; this has helped maintain the Macau
government's capacity to interface with Lusophone
counterparts on behalf of Beijing. Rita Botelho dos Santos,
staff director to the Permanent Secretary of the Forum for
Economic and Trade Cooperation Between China and
Portuguese-Speaking Countries, said that her office hosts a
ministerial meeting every three years (the last in 2006)
between China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the foreign
ministers of all Lusophone countries. On March 8, she told
us that her office was busy preparing for an upcoming
meeting, held in Macau on March 10-11, between the economic
ministers of each Portuguese-speaking country (posted in
Beijing) and their counterparts in the PRC central
government. The meeting served to strengthen economic ties
between China and Lusophone countries, with Macau playing a
leading role. Following the trade meeting on March 10-11,
Sun Tong, Deputy Director-General of the Department of
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs in China's Ministry of
Commerce, reportedly said that the trade volume between China
and Portuguese-speaking nations in 2007 grew 36 percent over
the previous year to more than USD 46 billion. Santos
explained that the PRC central government has increasingly
allowed the Macau government -- and her office in particular
-- to interface with the governments of Portuguese-speaking
countries on "less sensitive matters" without explicit
direction from Beijing.

Beijing Speaks, Macau Listens
--------------


7. (C) In contrast to Santos' view, which focused on economic
relations, Carneiro characterized the political relationship
between the Macau and central governments as one in which
"Beijing speaks and Macau listens." For example, he said,
when IIUM was established ten years ago, just prior to the
handover and by agreement between the central government and
the Government of Portugal, Central Government Liaison Office
officials in Macau told university administrators that only
two subjects were "not to be criticized" in university
research and programs: (1) the "one country, two systems"
principle, and (2) the Politburo of the Communist Party of
China. The university has not challenged that instruction,
though it finds plenty of other areas to research outside of
those two strictures.

China-Macau-Vatican Relations
--------------


8. (C) Macau's Roman Catholic Bishop, Jose Lai Hung Seng, who
(according to Carneiro) also leads the China Commission in
the Vatican, reportedly traveled to the Vatican recently to
participate in discussions on the Holy See's relations with
Beijing at the request of Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican's
Secretary of State. Hong Kong's Cardinal Joseph Zen

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reportedly also attended. Though Macau's Catholic Diocese
has largely refrained from public involvement in political
issues, Carneiro opined that Bishop Lai is better positioned
and "used more" than Hong Kong's Cardinal Zen to build
Sino-Vatican relations. He also said that the Macau diocese
was fully independent and did not report to or through Hong
Kong. Carneiro also claimed that the Macau Catholic Church
maintained close links with oversees Macau emigrant
communities.

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Cunningham