Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2010 34 that the potential economic impact of imposing stricter entry requirements on Vietnamese tourists will be limited. Macau is, in any case, perfectly within its rights under the Basic Law, the territory’s mini constitution agreed between China and Portugal before the handover from Portuguese administration in 1999, to make its own immigration policy regarding entry of tourists from“foreign states.” Article 136 of the Basic Law states: “The Macao Special Administrative Region may, on its own, using the name “Macao, China”, maintain and develop relations and conclude and implement agreements with foreign states and regions and relevant international organisations in the appropriate fields, including the economic, trade, financial and monetary, shipping, communications, tourism, cultural, science and technology, and sports fields.” Twin issues The Vietnamese visa question seems to involve two—often intertwined—topics that tend to provoke strong feelings in communities the world over: illegal immigrant workers and perceived increases in crime. Data from the Macau government do show that the number of crimes of all kinds recorded in Macau has generally risen with the increase of outside visitors and migrant workers (both legal and illegal). There are some exceptions, such as in 1997 and 1998, when 20 and 26 murders, respectively, were recorded—nearly 233% and 333% more, respectively, than the six homicides recorded in 2009, according to figures from the office of Macau’s Secretary of Security. The sharp spike in murders in the late 1990s was largely the result of a violent turf war between organised crime groups (triads) vying for supremacy prior to Macau’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1999. The fact is, most crime in Macau is by Chinese against other Chinese—either between locals, or locals and mainlanders, Hong Kongers or Taiwanese. That’s by virtue of the statistical dominance of ethnic Chinese people in the community (95% of the resident population and 87.3% of all the 28.1 million visitors in 2009). Nonetheless, the Vietnamese as a national and social group may have placed themselves in the sights of some Macau politicians because of a recent high profile case. In January, a Vietnamese described in media reports as an illegal worker was beaten and stabbed to death, allegedly by ten of his fellow countrymen, most of whom were reportedly illegal immigrants or holders of so-called ‘streetwalking papers’. These are documents issued as a type of unconditional bail by the Macau police that allow illegals to stay at liberty pending court hearings. One of the alleged attackers was drowned two days later when he tried to swim along Macau’s eastern coastline into the adjacent mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai. Macau police said at the time the murder was related to competition for jobs among illegal Vietnamese workers. Seven Vietnamese men were eventually arrested on murder charges. Macau legislator Au Kam-san, a local politician usually identified with a pro- democratic stance on political issues, said a massive backlog of cases at Macau courts was partially responsible for the abuse of streetwalking papers. Arguably, that’s a function of inefficiency within Macau’s system of public administration, rather than a function of any inherent recidivism or criminality among the Vietnamese as a social group. Pragmatism The Vietnamese visa issue need not be seen in human rights terms or in terms of whether the Macau locals get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside knowing that they are a welcoming community. Vietnam does, after all (like China), impose its own visa restrictions on many foreign nationals wishing to visit as tourists—in order to harvest valuable foreign currency in the form of visa fees as well as to keep tabs on who is actually inside the country. The important question for Macau is whether raising rather than lowering barriers to entry in a supposedly global tourism destination makes commercial sense in the long term and is a rational response to a real problem? Macau may need to be careful to distinguish between immigration controls that might be politically popular with its inhabitants in the short term, and ones that risk its reputation as an open and free market and could damage its economic prospects in the medium to long term. The irony of Macau officials beckoning Vietnamese visitors with one hand when times are tough, and then 18 months later making a ‘stop right there’ gesture with the other when gross gaming revenue fuelled by Chinese visitors is growing by a possible 90% year-on-year in May, will not be lost on the Vietnamese authorities or on Vietnam’s people. It potentially makes it a lot harder In Macau Policy Au Kam-san—democrat and populist