Jul 14, 2013

Macao Relocating to China

Sunday, July 14, 2013
0

OK, its not actually Macao that's moving to Mainland China (Macao is already part of China - although governed mostly independently as a special administrative region). Instead, the University of Macao is relocating to nearby Zhuhai on the mainland.  

A New York Times article talks about the novel move, especially notable for the fact that the university, although located on the mainland, will essentially operate separate from the People's Republic of China (PRC) government's control. This is no small matter since Macao is governed much differently from the PRC in some respects. For example, while China is known for strict Internet censorship (blocking many foreign websites), Macao allows pretty unrestricted Internet access. So, while University of Macao students and staff would be able to read the N.Y. Times article about their relocation, most mainland residents would not (since the NY Times is one of the many blocked websites).

 It's not difficult to understand the motivation for the move - the mainland campus will be much bigger and allow the university to expand. In this respect, its very similar to the trend among mainland Chinese universities located in densely populated cities to build new campuses outside their city center where there's much more space available for much cheaper prices.

 What makes the University of Macao's situation so different is that it will essentially operate as its own legal jurisdiction within the Chinese mainland. The article quotes unnamed experts who say there is "no recent precedence for a chunk of Chinese land being passed to another legal jurisdiction in this manner . . ." Actually, that depends on what you consider recent. In the not-too-distant past, China was forced to grant extraterritoriality to several foreign nations in the mid 1800s after its defeat in the First Opium War. Of course, the circumstances and motivations behind this experiment with "higher-education extraterritoriality" are much different.
Foreigners carving up pieces of China
Extraterritoriality after the Opium War's Treaty of Nanjing caused significant hostility since foreign residents in China were not subject to Chinese law and as a result were able to get away with things that they otherwise wouldn't have or would have been punished much more severely for. Similarly, this odd type of inequity might apply to situations that arise at the University of Macao. According to University of Macao law professor Jorge A.F. Godinho, if someone commits a crime on campus, they would be subject to Macao rather than PRC criminal law. This might seem hard to believe, especially for Westerners that tend to view the Chinese government as autocratic and totalitarian. However, in some situations, the PRC government tends to be more flexible than most of its critics realize or are willing to acknowledge.

 Maybe, this its a tiny first step toward some degree of opening up of Chinese higher education. It would be foolish to believe that China will embrace the Western notion of academic freedom or decide to allow unrestricted Internet access to all of Chinese society, but I think there is some realistic hope for additional educational reform that may result in greater access to information over time for Chinese society at large. Just as the extraterritoriality imposed by England resulted in reforms and affected Chinese society in various ways during the late 19th century, the University of Macao's experiment in educational extraterritoriality may result in changes that gradually spread throughout and affect China during this century.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)