Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2010 36 for Macau to go knocking on its neighbours’ doors looking for non-gaming tourists next time there’s an economic downturn close to home or mainland China decides to impose fresh restrictions on its citizens wishing to travel to Macau. In terms of their social impact on Macau, visa overstayers from mainland China are far more likely to put pressure on the resources of the territory than are overstayers from Vietnam. They are also far more likely to go undetected, being native speakers of at least one Chinese language and potentially having legally resident friends or relatives to support and possibly even employ them. The number of criminal cases involving the assistance and employment of illegal workers went up 19% in the first quarter of 2009, according to the office of Macau’s Secretary of Security. A recent media report in the South China Morning Post also suggested there is a flourishing trade in sham marriages for cash between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong or Macau permanent residents. Even a cursory study of Macau’s history since the Second World War suggests that a significant portion of the current population of permanent residents are actually themselves former illegal immigrants from the mainland or children of such illegal immigrants, made legal only by one of the regular amnesties issued by the former Portuguese administrators of the territory. Overstayers Figures for the number of tourist visa overstayers in Macau for the first quarter of 2010 have not been released yet, but in May last year, Secretary for Security Cheong Kuok Va said the police caught 41,672 illegal immigrants and overstayers in the first quarter of 2009. A total of 91.2% of them were from mainland China. Among thosemainland overstayers, 11,594 had entered Macau under the individual visitor scheme, and a further 26,428 were travelling on other permits or documents. The figures for those two categories of mainland overstayers were up by 5,570 (92.5%) and 14,036 (113.3%), respectively, year-on-year. In addition, there were 444 illegal immigrants (an interesting number since the Cantonese word for ‘four’ sounds very similar to the Cantonese word for ‘death’— see ‘What’s in a Number’ on page 66 of this issue) from the mainland detected in that period, according to Mr Cheong. These were people who had apparently sneaked in or been smuggled over the border by land or by boat and may never have had an entry visa in the first place—or had one so long ago and overstayed for so long that records were no longer available. In the first quarter of 2009, Macau had a population of 546,200, according to DSEC. The figure of 38,022 mainland overstayers that quarter is equivalent, therefore—had they all gone undetected—to adding 7% to Macau’s population in the space of just three months. At an annually compounded rate, plus a likely natural population increase via children born to such newcomers, it would have meant Macau’s Q1 2009 population doubling in a matter of a few years if those overstayers were not discovered and repatriated. Yet no one is calling for the tightening of visa entry requirements on mainland tourists coming to Macau. As demonstrated on a number of occasions in recent years, the mainland authorities reserve the right to decide who among China’s citizens, and how many, should be allowed permits to visit Macau under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS). China can and does turn that IVS tap on and off to suit its own domestic political needs. A total of 2,758,310 mainland Chinese residents visited Macau as tourists in the first quarter of 2009, according to DSEC. That means just under 1.4% of mainland visitors overstayed their legally permitted visit. It’s possible that the proportion of Vietnamese tourists who overstayed their visas is higher than that, but given that the number of Vietnamese tourists was statistically insignificant, it’s hardly likely to have much of an impact on Macau’s society or economy. Selective What, then, is the rationale for the 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. Cheong Kuok Va, Macau’s Secretary for Security