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"Macau (Special Administrative Region)"
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Betting on Macau
A comprehensive look into how Macau’s recent decades of gambling-related growth produced one of the wealthiest territories on the planet Betting on Macau delves into the radical transformation of what was formerly the last remaining European territory in Asia, returned to the People’s Republic of China in 1999 after nearly half a millennium of Portuguese rule. Examining the unprecedented scale of its development and its key role in China’s economic revolution, Tim Simpson follows Macau’s emergence from historical obscurity to become the most profitable casino gaming locale in the world. Identified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and renowned for its unique blend of Chinese and Portuguese colonial-era architecture, contemporary Macau has metamorphosed into a surreal, hypermodern urban landscape augmented by massive casino megaresorts, including two of the world’s largest buildings. Simpson situates Macau’s origins as a strategic trading port and its ensuing history alongside the emergence of the global capitalist system, charting the massive influx of foreign investment, construction, and tourism in the past two decades that helped generate the territory’s enormous wealth. Presented through a cross section of postcolonial studies and social theory with extensive insight into the global gambling industry, Betting on Macau uncovers the various roots of the territory’s lucrative casino capitalism. In turn, its trenchant analysis provides a distinctive view into China’s broader project of urbanization, its post-Mao economic reforms, and the continued rise of its consumer culture.
eBook
The Pearl River
Post-empire in the new Middle Kingdom: what once was America is now China. After his Insert Coins project (2016) about the decline of Las Vegas, Swiss photographer Christian Lutz set off to explore the world's new gambling capital, Macao, where everything revolves likewise around money, luxury, surfaces. This former Portuguese colony in the Pearl River delta, now one of China's special economic zones, began its meteoric ascent after the turn of the millennium when the Macao government ended the monopoly on gambling and opened up the market to foreign investors. They erected temples to Mammon, monumental marble and gold faced casino resorts algorithmically modelled on generic Venetian and Parisian templates, bringing in thirty million mostly Chinese tourists a year. Macao's regulated microclimate of gambling halls, boutiques and bars is packed with the usual businessmen and politicians in ill-fitting suits alongside upwardly mobile Chinese families in sweatpants and flip-flops. Everything here is sanitized, antiseptic, dust-free. And everything refers to simulacra of simulacra. Lutz's insistent photographic gaze laconically scans the smooth surfaces of this brave new world in which the first cracks are beginning to show.
Book
Wartime Macau
It has intrigued many that, unlike Hong Kong, Macau avoided direct Japanese wartime occupation albeit being caught up in the vortex of the wider global conflict. Geoffrey Gunn and an international group of contributors come together in Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow to investigate how Macau escaped the fate of direct Japanese invasion and occupation. Exploring the broader diplomatic and strategic issues during that era, this volume reveals that the occupation of Macau was not in Japan’s best interest because the Portuguese administration in Macau posed no threat to Japan’s control over the China coast and acted as a listening post to monitor Allied activities. Drawing upon archival materials in English, Japanese, Portuguese, and other languages, the contributors explain how, under the high duress of Japanese military agencies, the Portuguese administration coped with a tripling of its population and issues such as currency, food supply, disease, and survival. This volume presents contrasting views on wartime governance and shows how the different levels of Macau society survived the war.
eBook
Portugal, China and the Macau Negotiations, 1986–1999
On 20 December 1999 the city of Macau became a Special Administrative Region of China after nearly 450 years of Portuguese administration. Drawing extensively on Portuguese and other sources, and on interviews with key participants, this book examines the strategies and policies adopted by the Portuguese government during the negotiations. The study sets these events in the larger context of Portugal’s retreat from empire, the British experience with Hong Kong, and changing social and political conditions within Macau. A weak player on the international stage, Portugal was still able to obtain concessions during the negotiations, notably in the timing of the retrocession and continuing Portuguese nationality arrangements for some Macau citizens. Yet the tendency of Portuguese leaders to use the Macau question as a tool in their domestic political agendas hampered their ability to develop an effective strategy and left China with the freedom to control the process of negotiation. The first sustained analysis of the Macau negotiations from the Portuguese perspective, this book will be of interest to historians, diplomats, and students of international relations.
eBook
Fodor's Hong Kong : with a side trip to Macau
\"Fodor's correspondents highlight the best of Hong Kong, including the city's favorite shopping spots and tailors, most evocative temples, and tastiest dim sum destinations. Our local experts vet every recommendation to ensure you make the most of your time, whether it's your first trip or you fifth,\"--back cover.
Book
The Lone Flag
When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941 Macao was left as a tiny isolated enclave on the China Coast surrounded by Japanese-held territory. As a Portuguese colony, Macao was neutral, and John Reeves, the British Consul, could remain there and continue his work despite being surrounded in all directions by his country’s enemy. His main task was to provide relief to the 9,000 or more people who crossed the Pearl River from Hong Kong to take refuge in Macao and who had a claim for support from the British Consul. The core of this book is John Reeves’ memoir of those extraordinary years and of his tireless efforts to provide food, shelter and medical care for the refugees. He coped with these challenges as Macao’s own people faced starvation. Despite Macao’s neutrality, it was thoroughly infiltrated by Japanese agents and, marked for assassination, Reeves had to have armed guards as he went about his business. He also had to navigate the complexities of multiple intelligence agencies—British, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese Nationalist—in a place that was described as the Casablanca of the Far East.
eBook
Gaming, Governance and Public Policy in Macao
The small city of Macao — formerly a Portuguese colony, now a Special Administrative Region of China — liberalised its gaming industry in 2002. Since then a score of new casinos have been built and millions of gamblers have flooded in from mainland China. Per capita income has more than doubled in five years and the gaming operators have outstripped their Las Vegas counterparts in revenue and profits. But rapid economic growth has also brought social and political problems. In this structured survey of modern Macao, 15 experts examine the effects of massive foreign investment, the problems of governance, and increasing public policy challenges in a time of rapid change and potential social instability. They also discuss the efficacy or otherwise of measures to address economic hardship, social dislocation and political change over the past decade. Gaming, Governance and Public Policy in Macau will be of interest to anyone concerned with the gaming industry and its uses in strategies for economic growth. For those who want to know more about Macao than its gaming tables and neon lights, the book will provide a range of interpretations of the way in which the city is developing.
eBook