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french lies posted:Yessir, these were two of the most important bases of Western colonization of China: Hong Kong and Macau (Shanghai was, too, but Shanghai’s industrial, national, and financial importance was such that it became and important symbol in the civil war and couldn’t receive the same political exemptions). The framework for their exceptional system is as old as the Deng administration, which talked about the return of Hong Kong and Macau (and indeed Taiwan) as being feasible under “One nation, two systems” (一国两制) I'm not an expert about China proper, but as the resident professional gambler, here are some words about Macau: The rest of the OP is great, but what I quoted just now is wrong; despite its size, Macau may well be more important to China than Hong Kong will ever be. The reason, of course, is gaming and the impact it has on the mainland. Gambling has been allowed in Macau roughly forever, but starting in the mid 20th century, the only group allowed to operate was a state monopoly. This enterprise was successful but had marked limits on what it was allowed to do; the Portuguese government viewed the issue as sensitive and didn't particularly welcome a huge amount of Chinese gamblers. What it did do, and what we'll come back to shortly, was start running ferries to Hong Kong, which was not Chinese enough at the time for anyone to care. These boats were soon carrying millions of people a year and turned the monopoly a very nice (staggering) amount of money. When Macau was handed over to the Chinese in 1999, the smell of gold was in the air from day one. Now theoretically subordinate to China proper and thus freed from the shackles of actually having to tread lightly around issues of international diplomacy, the government liberalized the industry as fast as they possibly could. Because gambling is outlawed (and occasionally punished by prison sentences) in the rest of China, Macau became the only easily accessible outlet for over a billion people. By 2006, Macau casinos took in more money than those in Vegas; today, the take is 5 times that (to be fair, these days, both sets of properties are largely owned by the same corporate chains). There are currently 33 different mega-casinos running in an area of 11 square miles and over 50% of Macau's economy comes directly from gambling. In 2011, these casinos took in over $35 billion USD. What makes Macau very different from Vegas, though, is that I just lied; the part about the income coming from 'gambling' is not actually true. Over two thirds of this gigantic number actually comes from *one game*: high stakes VIP baccarat. Here's a random post from another forum: quote:There's a high limit $10k minimum bet baccarat table on the 1st floor next to the escalator in {Gran Lisboa, a major casino} in open public area. Everyday, around the clock, 80% of the time there would be someone driving the action by betting $100,000 to $500,000 per hand. Around him there would be a crowd of 10-20 degens betting smaller amounts. No matter the time you're reading this, someone in Macau is currently betting a million dollars a minute and losing about $10,000 a minute (with huge variance, of course) on baccarat. Fortunately for them, strictly speaking, they're not actually losing 'their' money. You see, what's actually happening is this: quote:But it is not just a passion for cards that brought more than 13.2m mainlanders to Macau in the first ten months of this year. Many come to elude China’s strict limits on the amount of yuan people can take out of the country. A government official who has embezzled state funds, for example, may arrange to gamble in Macau through a junket. When he arrives, his chips are waiting for him. When he cashes out, his winnings are paid in Hong Kong dollars, which he can stash in a bank in Hong Kong or take farther afield. Macau is the biggest money laundering town in the world. The laundering business is so large it has spawned a recently fully legitimized cottage industry of 'junkets', a description combines the Las Vegas VIP host (person that will get you everything you could possibly want, occasionally including but not limited to hookers and blow, as long as you drop large amounts of theoretical money) with the now run out of town 1960's Las Vegas loanshark slash collection agent. Here's some more on junkets: quote:- The VIP junket operators have a network of agents, known as sub-junkets whose job it is to select VIP patrons to gamble. Sub-junkets, or agents, are usually localized groups around China and familiar with the credit history of their clients. The sub-junkets receive commission from the VIP junket operators for giving credit to gamblers and are responsible for collecting debts. Some of these junkets are much more legitimate than others, but basically all of them live and die by wealthy Chinese smuggling their money out and whitewashing it via baccarat rake. That's not to say there are no legitimate degenerates in China - God knows there are probably more of them there per capita than anywhere else in the world - but many if not most of them only drop money that cannot otherwise be converted from RMB in any other way, to the tune of a very large fraction of $35 billion a year. Of course, baccarat being what it is, many of these people do wind up losing 100% of what they embezzled, which is where the loan shark part of the junket enterprise comes in; the Hong Kong triads have been all over Macau since its inception and take the ferries just like everybody else. The Chinese government, of course, knows all about this and occasionally cracks down on visas from the mainland (yes, Macau requires visas); most recently, the province nearest the peninsula has seen visa issuance restricted to a massive barrier of once every three months. Even this, of course, stops absolutely no one of any real significance because the various Hong Kong boats go back and forth 24/7 and the people involved have long since bribed far more important individuals than border guards. It's widely predicted that over the next few years, China will lose patience and come down once and for all...but those predictions have been around since the initial legalization while gaming revenue rose tenfold. This has really been a rather too snarky post about a territory that's much more developed than it sounds like so far; the place has 500,000 residents with an unemployment rate of 3%, the second longest life expectancy in the world and isn't nearly as much of a tax haven as it used to be. But 20 of its 22 million visitors every year are from China or Hong Kong, and although its economy is a tenth of Hong Kong's, it may siphon out close to as much black market money out as HK does.
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Feb 16, 2012 00:07
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Throatwarbler posted:One thing I really liked about this piece was the academic experiments basically proving that Chinese investors are much more tolerant of risk than American ones. There's a lovely Orientalist meme going around the west about Chinese investors, especially real estate investors, that somehow they are much more "long term" and "family oriented" and otherwise more conservative due to their ancient culture blah blah blah *sound of gong in background*. Haha. I don't know where this meme you're talking about came from, but the poker/gaming community has a very...different opinion on Asian and especially Chinese gamblers. TheBuilder posted:Regarding Macau and its development related to China, it would be interesting to see the breakdown of gamblers based on their nationality. Is most of the money coming in from China? Macau is certainly easier to reach than Las Vegas for Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc. How much money coming into Macau is from CCP members? Almost all of it is Chinese. Maybe not by player, but definitely by money wagered.
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Apr 5, 2012 17:45
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OSheaman posted:So wait a minute, I apologize if this has been asked before but: Chen is on soverign Chinese soil now, right? The hospital is on Chinese land, right? So even if the US decides, hey, we changed our mind and we want to give this guy asylum, there's no way for them to do it legally unless China gives him back to the US, yes? Which is obviously never going to happen, so at this point aren't the US's hands pretty much tied? He would have to somehow get himself into the embassy again, yeah.
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May 3, 2012 21:58
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Then there's that little issue of getting him out of the country. If that somehow happens, he'll be able to leave. Nobody is storming an embassy to get him out and keeping him blockaded would be a PR disaster for China. It won't happen because when he checks out of the hospital that embassy's going to be surrounded by plainclothes 24/7.
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May 3, 2012 22:09
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Modus Operandi posted:It would be an interesting scenario if China tried to engineer a demographic time bomb by just opening up the borders to India and allowed Tibetans a one way trip. I imagine you'd end up with a situation like Castro's Cuba. A lot of prisons would "mysteriously" empty over night. It'd also potentially start a nuclear war in a few years once the now-Indian Tibetans organized enough to start an insurgency operating from Indian soil, which they'd assuredly do. You know, kinda like the other cold war between two nuclear powers in the area. But yeah, things have changed since the Russians simply put Solzhenitsyn on a plane once they got tired of him. Nowadays, you apparently need an excuse.
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May 4, 2012 18:24
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