This book examines how the Portuguese government negotiated the question of Macau’s retrocession with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1980s and 1990s—primarily between 1986 and 1999. As negotiating partners interested in passive settlement, Portugal and China used Macau as a political showcase. In Portugal, the centre-right Social Democrat Party (PSD) in power (1985–1995), fierce opponent of the leftist Socialist Party (PS), was adamant to take advantage of the negotiations with the Chinese to leverage internal political support. The left’s disorganised decolonisation in Africa and subsequent withdrawal from East Timor was the catalyst for the PSD’s...

Long before the negotiations about the future of Macau started, a cloud of precariousness hovered for a number of centuries over Portugal’s presence in a small peninsula, offset by fluctuations in Chinese power. It was probably out of sheer short-sightedness that Portugal did not legitimise its presence in Macau, believing that the friendly relations it enjoyed with China would remain in the long run despite its fragile presence in the territory. In more recent times, a notion of historical shared sovereignty¹ and the vaguely worded Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration of 1987 meant that Portugal and the PRC accepted the principle that...

The first signs that Beijing was considering seriously the settlement question came in June 1982, when Deng Xiaoping made a public declaration of China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macau stating that these territories would be re-integrated into China within a few years, under the banner of “one country, two systems”. In 1983, the Chinese ambassador in Lisbon claimed that the Macau statute had already been discussed in the Acta Secreta; this could be understood as a sign that China was open to embark on negotiations.¹

For political reasons China chose to draw parallels between Hong Kong and Macau, centring...

The Joint Declaration on Macau left many issues to be negotiated before the transfer of the Portuguese administration to China. The 1989 Tiananmen incident removed from power some of the Chinese leadership that had signed the Joint Declaration, most importantly the progressive Zhao Ziyang. The Chinese leadership had modified its philosophy, but maintained China’s global strategy.

The transfer of Macau’s administration to China was prepared during what came to be called the transition period that started on 15 January 1988, after the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration had entered into force, and ended with the handover on 19 December 1999. During this...

This chapter focuses on three other sensitive issues of the transition: the inclusion in the Macau Basic Law of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the construction of the Macau International Airport; and the Orient Foundation. These case studies represent examples of common Sino-Portuguese interests, a case of a predominantly Portuguese interest, and one of a predominantly Chinese interest.

The issue of the International Covenants highlights Portuguese weaknesses in the early Sino-Portuguese negotiations, especially the lack of foresight in negotiating the Joint Declaration....

Although in many ways the main actor in the Sino-Portuguese negotiations over Macau from 1986 to 1999 was the People’s Republic of China, in essence this book analysed Portugal’s foreign policy and how the Portuguese side dealt with the question of Macau. We found that the Portuguese approach towards the negotiations depended on the political parties and leaders that were in power. In general, poorly prepared diplomats through all Portuguese administrations and political constraints resulted in an inability to get the best benefits out of the negotiations for Macau and for Portugal. In some periods, divisions amongst Portuguese leaders and...