China Ramps Up Security Checks Ahead of Xi Jinping's Trip to Macau

Security is tight ahead of President Xi Jinping's visit to the former colonial city of Macau, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party has lauded as a model of integration 20 years after Portugal handed it back to China.

Xi is due in Macau on Wednesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the return of Macau to Chinese rule on Friday, but the escalated security measures are raising questions in neighboring Hong Kong, which marked its 20th anniversary two years ago.

The scant number of travelers making their way across the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge on Tuesday could be linked to the additional security checks at a police checkpoint on an artificial island between Hong Kong and Macau.

Meanwhile, customs officers searched the belongings of passengers boarding a jetfoil ferry from Hong Kong to Macau on Monday.

Nobody was allowed through without a search, and a body scan with a metal detector, on a service that has never previously subjected passengers to such checks before.

There was also a strong police presence at the Macau jetfoil terminal, with baggage X-ray machines in use on Monday.

Previous trips to the region by Xi weren't marked by the same level of security, even when the Chinese president has previously passed through Hong Kong, where a higher degree of democracy and a freer press has contributed to more outspoken criticism of Beijing.

In Macau itself, car-drivers were forming lines outside gas stations after being warned that they may not be able to fill up with fuel during Xi's visit, owing to "special transportation arrangements" from Dec. 18-20.

Meanwhile, the city -- which, unlike Hong Kong, never effectively clamped down on infiltration by Communist Party agents under colonial rule -- is in the process of fully integrating into mainland China's nationwide surveillance and facial recognition network, known as Skynet.

Chinese jurisdiction

Several hundred cameras are already up and running, and linked to China's police-run network, with a total of 1,620 cameras to be trained on public areas throughout the city by the end of March 2020.

Chinese police last week detained a Hong Kong resident at the checkpoint on the bridge, prompting questions over whether China was overreaching its jurisdiction.

But chief executive Carrie Lam's second-in-command Matthew Cheung said there was nothing Hong Kong could do about it.

"It's beyond Hong Kong's control. In fact, it's not Hong Kong’s purview," Cheung told journalists. "It's perfectly justified for them to exercise jurisdiction within their own territory. It's entirely legal and justified."

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is a cross-boundary bridge that doesn't affect the current boundaries of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), which is a separate legal jurisdiction from mainland China, although Beijing is in charge of any matter relating to national security, foreign policy or defense.

"The three governments have the responsibility to take enforcement actions and exercise jurisdiction within their own territory in accordance with the respective local laws," the statement said.

Hong Kong is responsible only for the Hong Kong Link Road and the Hong Kong Port section of the bridge, with the mainland authorities responsible for the part of the bridge beyond that, it said.

"The area concerned is squarely situated in Zhuhai and belongs to the Mainland jurisdiction," it said.

Macau has generally been regarded in the popular perception of Chinese officialdom as the "well-behaved child" of the former colonial cities, with protest-happy Hong Kong regarded as the troublemaker.

Planted officials

Hong Kong current affairs commentator Camoes Tam said China had sent officials to Portugal to study its language, culture and legal system soon after signing the handover agreement in 1987, then planted them in the city's top jobs after the handover.

They included Huang Shaoze, the current director of the Macau security bureau, and prosecutor Ye Xunsheng and former prosecutor He Chaoming, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

"One issue was the legal culture; another was the localization of civil servants; a third was the legalization of Chinese, that is, how to make Chinese the legal language," Tam said.

He said Macau is a civil law jurisdiction, while Hong Kong is a common law jurisdiction.

"People in Macau are very patriotic, while Hong Kong people are anti-communist," Tam said. "Hong Kong's recent troubles have been a loss of face for the Chinese Communist Party, so if they praise Macau ... this will be good publicity for the short term."

Journalist Luo Yi said the Portugal-trained officials had functioned as Beijing's agents in the Macau administration from the 1999 handover onwards.

"This group of people have a high degree of loyalty to the central government, so they will implement its policies," he said. "It was partly to fill in a skills gap, but partly also that Beijing needed to put its own people in Macau to strengthen the central government's control there."

While he is in the city, Xi will unveil a series of measures to turn Macau into a financial center, Reuters reported.

But Luo said the city is unlikely to challenge Hong Kong's financial supremacy in the Pearl River Delta region any time soon.

"There isn't enough economic diversity, and really the central government only uses Macau as a way of spreading risk," he said.

Reported by Tseng Yat-yiu, Han Jie and Lu Xi for RFA's Cantonese and Mandarin Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.