Muted handover set for Macau

Wed, 15 Dec 1999, 00:00 WIB | Source: AFP

BEIJING (AFP): China will mark Macau's return to Chinese rule
here with a scaled down version of the celebrations for the Hong
Kong handover in 1997, despite saying the historic event is just
as important.

"I agree the scale of celebrations for Macau is not as grand
as Hong Kong's handover," Liang Guihe, a spokesman for the
government-linked All-China Journalists Association, told a press
briefing on Tuesday.

The Portuguese colony, which survives on the gambling
industry, holds little economic value for the mainland. In the
1970s China even turned down an offer from Portugal to take back
the peninsula lying in the very south of the vast mainland.

But in the run-up to the handover at midnight Sunday, Dec. 19,
China has ran numerous propaganda-laced dramas and television
commercials to boost patriotism.

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