The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is a documentary account of the situation in the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing world affairs for generations to come. Macau, decision pending. The Pacific Story Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Listen to me, cow. Listen. We demand the return of Macau to China. Yes, return Macau to China. Return Macau to the Macau was taken from China while... Quiet! Quiet! Listen, Dujing, cow. Macau was taken from China by treachery and deception. Macau was the first piece of Chinese territory to fall into the hands of a Western power. Under the foreigner, it has degenerated until today it is called the wickedest city in the world, a place of corruption and immorality, a hideout for criminals. Because the cow was armed by right and to clear away the last vestige of unequal treaties, we demand the return of Macau to China. Yes, in the violent control of Macau. How can violence end? Never, never, never! Macau, decision pending. Ten thousand Chinese students demonstrated in the streets of Chungking for the return of this tiny island forty miles west of Hong Kong. With an area of only about six square miles, it would not increase China's wealth nor its loss affect the size of China. But its return would erase the last stain of unfair international relations with China. It was obtained by Portugal by virtue of an unequal treaty. Today, nearly four hundred years after it became a pawn of the Western powers, Macau is no longer a port of consequence. Every other place in the Chinese quarter is a fan can hall where tourists play alongside poor coolies until the small hours of the morning. That's good, fellows. It's quite the lot today, really, with fiddle cane, you know, without... Here's ten more, please. Ten more. Coming over here from Hong Kong for years, less than three hours by boat across the mouth of the Pearl River, you know. No place like Macau in the world, wide open. Call it Monte Carlo the seven winds, sir. I say this is my day off. Oh, well, we'll make it up. Twenty this time. Twenty. Frongs crowd around the long tables, money in hand. The dealers with the stone faces that characterize dealers everywhere flick out the cards. Coupiers manipulate dice in mysterious containers. Pyramids of yellow light fall upon the green tables and betray the smoke-filled air of the room. Well, well, make it thirty this time. Thirty. The gamblers come and go year in, year out. And for surfees, there is a pipe of opium. It's a profitable business. This is an old China hand. The gambling and opium monopolies are a never failing source of revenue. Nine wins. Fine. I say that's my number. What did I tell you? What did I tell you? Now I'm started. Thirty game, please. Thirty. And you see, that's how it goes. There's always money. No matter what happens tonight, there'll always be more money to mark. The narrow streets are hung with signs in Chinese, Portuguese, and English. Above the government house hangs the red and green Portuguese flag. Sikh policemen wearing turbans direct the traffic. People of all complexions, black, yellow, white, saunter along. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutch, Meleys, Indians, and many of those called Portuguese, who were an admixture of the Portuguese adventurers and colonists who came here hundreds of years ago, and now are all but absorbed by Chinese blood. The city smells. That's fish. Most of it. This is the waterfront. Smell it. See, they're just bringing them in off those junks there at the dock. Green fish, brown fish, gray fish, blue fish, big ones, small ones, smooth ones, rough ones, writhing octopi, crabs looking like giant spiders, a thousand different strange creatures of the sea. Those fish are fresh. They're fresh. They're fresh. They're fresh. They're fresh. They're fresh. They're fresh. The smell comes from the stuff that's fallen off the carts and been grounded for the cobblestones for centuries, and from that seafood you see drying over there in those open boxes in front of the stores. The smell of a thousand years of fishing hangs in the air and mingles with the acrid smell of cooking food, of jostics and incense, of opium smoke, of raking, sweating bodies, of eastern perfume insupportably sweet, of painted demi-montagne, of vagrant whips of garbage, of brackish seawater, of herbs and medicines. Ah, nothing like it in all the world. On the highest hill overlooking the city is Fort Gia and Gia Light. Yeah, that was the first lighthouse to be built in China. There's been a fort and a chapel up there for more than 300 years. The lighthouse was built there about the time of the American Civil War. On another hill is Bom Porto Fort. Those old forts up there have seen a lot of fighting. Just about 100 years ago, the Portuguese governor Amaral quit paying the Chinese rent. He also expelled the Chinese from the Chinese custom office and set up free trade. Well, not long after this, he was riding along a road. Seven Chinese jumped him. He only had one hand. He lost the other in a sea battle some years before, but he fought like a wild man. They downed him, cut off his head and his hand, and took him to Canton. Not far from Bom Porto Fort are the ruins of San Paolo Cathedral, built more than 350 years ago by Japanese Christians and Portuguese. You can see the influence of the Portuguese in the architecture wherever you turn. The bright colors, the tile roofs and all. Half a million or more people live in this city and in the thousands of boats that lie in its crescent-like harbor. But all do not work in the gambling houses, the opium cribs, the vice centers. I make firecrackers. The firecracker industry is one of the most important in Macau. We make these spills in our homes, thousands of us. And the spills are taken to the factory, and there the powder and fuses are put into them. The firecrackers are exported to all parts of the world. Sometimes I make incense sticks instead of firecrackers. And when this season is passed, I work in the mud-weaving factory. Others work in the preparation of tobacco and tea and wine and matches and rice flour. And some work in the bottle factory making Chinese medicine vials. The opium is prepared for local consumption by the government. There's a sharp line of demarcation between Portuguese Macau and the mainland of Asia. You see, Macau is on the southern point of this island of Wangshan. It's really not an island at all. It's connected with the mainland by this narrow neck of land. And this brick wall here, built by the Chinese, separates Macau from China itself. Oh, there you are! That's the Chinese guy. You are advanced and be recognized. We're just looking at the wall here. We're not going through into China. Very well. You'll come out closer. Good, good. The Chinese have had soldiers on guard here for hundreds of years. And they mean it. A century or so ago, a Chinese was found guilty of helping some Portuguese get through into the mainland. He was tortured to death. His mother and father and all his brothers and sisters were beheaded. The village he lived in was burned down. And the whole vicinity of his village, for miles around, was destroyed. The bad blood between the Chinese and the Portuguese is centuries old. Your Excellency, we humbly ask your forbearance. You may rise. Thank you, Your Excellency. Speak now. Yes, Your Excellency. I bring you greetings from my king on the other side of the world. My king sends gifts and articles of tribute. But our voyage has been desperate. In the high seas of the storm, my ship founded. Most of my crew and nearly all of the gifts from my king were lost. Those of us who were spared have come to you at last. But we regret that the boatload of gifts and tribute articles we bring are what is sold. We ask that your Excellency lease to us quarters here in Kao that we may spread out and dry these gifts and tribute articles before presenting them to you. You wish to lease a section of Macau? Only to dry our waters of gifts to you, Your Excellency. How long will this require? In order that we may mend the damage done, it may take a little longer than I shall talk to my advisors. Thank you for your graciousness, Your Excellency. Meantime, you will be restricted to the port area. We await your decision with patience. Permission was given. The Portuguese set up small houses and covered them with thatch. Slowly goods were brought from the waterfront to the houses. Slowly they were unpacked and spread out. But all of them did not go to the Chinese authority. Some were traded, and as the supplies ran low, they were replenished from other Portuguese vessels calling at the port. One by one, as the gifts and tribute articles presumably dried, they were presented to the Chinese authority. And either because the Chinese authorities were thus induced, or because they neglected to watch the Portuguese, new and larger buildings were put up, and the Portuguese quarter expanded. Why does our government not put a stop to this expansion? There is only one reason you should well know. The Kohongs? Indeed. The Kohongs are respectable merchants. They would not accept bribes. How else can you account for this? Perhaps they are too reserved to protest. Let us not be deluded. You and I were born here in Amagal before the Portuguese came. Have we lived all our lives here without understanding the nature of dealing with the foreigner? As a Chinese, I protest. As a Chinese, I cringe with shame. After four years of this expansion, Portuguese officials arrived from Lisbon. By this time, the Portuguese had enlarged their toehold and now had come to make it legal. For a yearly rental of 1,000 tales, they obtained a lease on a restricted area of Macau. With this, Macau became the oldest European outpost in trade with China. More Portuguese flocked in, adventurous traders, soldiers of fortune, women and children, and the church. Here, where we have established the center of Jesuit missionary activity, a network among the people of China and all the Far East, we now establish the seat of the bishopric of Macau, which shall include the East Indies and the Christians of Malacca and Singapore. Here we will have churches and colleges and convents, and one day a cathedral, in Nomeny Patreia, to fill in its spirit of sanctity. Japanese pirates came to take refuge in Macau. Some of these were made Christians. They helped in the building of the famous St. Paul Cathedral, the ruins of which still stand against the skyline of Macau. But the Chinese took special notice of another activity of the Portuguese. You call for me, Your Excellency? Yes. What enterprise takes your men and the thousands of coolies to work at the top of the hills? Your Excellency, we are only taking measures for the protection of your imperial government and for the city and the people of Macau. Protection against whom? Against the Spaniards and the British and the French. Your Excellency, they covet this gem of the Overing Earth. Then you are building forts on the hills. For your defense? Your Excellency. But you have come here only for trade. For trade, yes. But when trade becomes valuable, then... You will build no further forts or defense works, either on the hills or on the waterfront, without express permission from me. Yes, Your Excellency. But before taking my departure, may I say that Macau is in grave danger. The Dutch came. The Dutch came in 1603. They came again in 1604. They came again in 1607. And they came again in 1622. The Portuguese threw them back all four times, the last and most famous time on St. John's Day, June 24, 1622. But before the Portuguese were finally to turn back the Dutch, the Chinese governor in Macau petitioned the Chinese emperor to drive the pirates out to sea. We're foreigners stationed in Macau. China is like a man with a cancer on his back. Instead, only superficial control measures were taken. I am not for making war too easily. When these foreigners are surrounded by our forces and have to depend on us for their food supply, we shall have perfect control over them. Once they are out to sea, however, we shall have no way of preventing them from committing misdeeds. The most reasonable policy for the present is to keep them within the bounds of the law and under vigilance so that a state of peace may be obtained. But the Chinese maintained their sovereignty over Macau. They maintained a customs house with a full Chinese staff. The Portuguese continued to pay their annual rentals, but with the passing years reduced it. Tension grew between the Chinese and the Portuguese. But within Macau, trade flourished. Fortunes were made. The Portuguese tightened their hold, and Chinese power waned. Our hold on Macau weakened because just for this time, China was at war with Britain. This is Ding Chao Wu, the Chinese student. At the end of the Opium War in 1842, we were obliged to cede Hong Kong to Britain. The British immediately started developing Hong Kong into a great port. And since Hong Kong is just 40 miles across the mouth of the Pue River from Macau, gradually Hong Kong took most of the trade from Macau. A few years after this, the Portuguese made an announcement. Effective at once, Portugal will no longer pay rent to China. This was Governor Amaral. Notice is hereby given that the Chinese customs house is abolished and the Chinese staff expelled. The Chinese boiled. Well, it was not long after this that Governor Amaral was attacked by the seven Chinese assassins as he was riding along the road from the old town to the barrier gate. Amaral lost his head, his hand, and his life. But the Chinese lost Macau. After this, Macau declined. Opium running, smuggling, white slavery, and shady traffic of all kinds were found more profitable than trying to compete with Hong Kong. All right, move along there, move along, get aboard. Keep the line moving up ahead here, keep moving. That's 288, 289, 290, 291. Keep moving up there, get aboard. 292, 293, 294. Keep the line moving. On the vessel up there, get moving. Hoseung, Hoseung, get the moving down that hatch. Aye. Is that the finest space between decks? Let's see, 295, 296, 297. Aye. Coming along, Will. Aye? Oh, very well, Captain, sir. Oh, excuse me, just a minute. That's 298, 299, 300. That's well for now. That's well! Oh, get back there now. And Wilson, get the coolers you have on deck thrown away before we're bringing them all aboard. What had 300 you have board now? Yes, sir. We're pretty well filled, sir. We should be able to take half of you on that money. The compartments below are already crowded. The boat still is full. We get paid only for the ones we deliver to Cuba, remember that. We got them packed in now, sir. We have got to have enough aboard to make up for the ones that die. We're not completing this passage with half a hole full as we did on that last trip of ours to Peru. Get them aboard, pack them in. Let me know when we're loaded. Yes, sir. All right, got them moving aboard down there. Yo! All right, get moving aboard. Keep the line moving up ahead there. Move along there. That's 301, 302, 303. There you are. Macau became a transshipment point for the illegal export of coolie labor. It was not only coolie labor. It was virtually slave labor. This is Dingxiao Road. Cheap labor was needed everywhere in the world, in many parts of Latin America, and even in California in the mines, and to build the railroads. The peasants of South China were shipped out by the tens of thousands. At that time, emigration from China was against the law. But those who needed cheap labor found ways of dealing with ship captains, who found ways of dealing through the Portuguese to bring the coolies out of South China. The men in the foreign lands paid for services of the coolies with an advance. For this advance, the coolies were obliged to work for a certain number of years. So the coolies became virtual slaves, and most of them never saw their homeland again. Yeah, that went on for a good many years until the British government put pressure on the decaying Manchu regime to do something about it. Then the Chinese government forced the slave traders to guarantee every coolie a return trip to China, free. From lack of care, the harbor of Macau slowly silted up. Large ships could no longer call at the port, but as trade and commerce fell off, vice increased. Still, the Chinese refused to relinquish their claim to Macau. At last, in 1887, the tottering Manchu regime entered into a treaty with Portugal. As a reward to the Portuguese for helping the Chinese authorities to clear the district of pirates, the Chinese Empire provides that the Portuguese shall hereafter be allowed the right of permanent residence and administrative control in Macau and the places belonging to Macau. But the Chinese Empire formally recognizes Portugal's sovereignty over Macau, confirms the perpetual occupation and government of Macau by Portugal. In turn, Portugal agrees never to alienate Macau without the consent of China and to cooperate with China in the opium revenue. Sign here, please. The Manchus signed, and now under the Manchus, China was suffering blow after blow in her international relations. China's prestige was falling. Everywhere she was losing territory and rights to foreigners. And under all this, revolution was ceasing. The lid blew off in 1911, and while revolution and counterrevolution swept across the land, Macau sank more and more into obscurity, except as a center of gambling and vice. But momentous days lay ahead. Yeah, when we finish here, Macau will not only have a deep water harbor, but also she will have about 130 acres more reclaimed land. How long is it going to take you, Judgement, to finish the job? Oh, two, three years. Mm-hmm. Should be finished about 1926 then. Yeah, about then. Well, pretty good contract for you fellas. Ten million dollars. Here's a big job. Yeah. Once again, the harbor was back in use, and this was to be important in the light of the events that were then taking shape in the Pacific. Thousands of ships called at the port each year and carried out rice, fish, lumber, silk, peace goods, and oil. And opium. Yes, opium. By 1939, the League of Nations had cut down the opium trade from about a million and a half dollars to about $200,000. But by that time, Macau was the only free port in South China, and it was in the hands of the Portuguese. The Japanese had taken Canton and had sealed off South China. Little Macau stood alone. Portugal was not at war with China, but the next year the Portuguese received a demand from the Japanese Army. Recognizing that a state of war exists between Japan and China, and in the interest of friendly relations, it is necessary that the Portuguese do three things. First, recognize the Chinese government that has been set up by Chung Shan under the protection of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. Second, that all Portuguese troops be evacuated from the irons of Rapa and Wancai near Macau. Third, to facilitate removal of persons inimical to the good of Japan, that Japan have the right of house-to-house search of all buildings in Macau. The war was creeping close to Macau. It was to come closer. You can't never ignore that business. Now, I'm going to decide to get big for this, we'll be inside of this quick now. I'm going to decide right now. Yes, I remember that all right. That was in August 1943. By that time, Japan was also at war with Britain. There was a British steaming port vessel named the Siam. The Japanese made a surprise attack, killed about 20 guards and took the vessel. The next month, they gave the Portuguese government of Macau a choice. Either they could accept Japanese advisors or the Japanese would move in and occupy the island. The Japanese established military control over Macau. The Portuguese protested, but more and more Japanese troops came. Rumors that Portugal was contemplating a declaration of war on Japan failed Macau. For all practical purposes, Macau was neutral. Yet it was occupied by the Japanese. The American and British consuls moved uneasily. The British consul has been kidnapped. Kidnapped? The British consul? Yes. Why, that is outright violation of the neutrality of Portugal. What authority has Portugal here now? Macau was alive with rumors. The Japanese clamped down on every means of communication, on every suspected person, kept their fingers on the very pulse of Macau. Meanwhile, the United States was in the war and was driving across the Pacific toward the Asiatic mainland and Macau. From Tokyo came reports of what was happening in Macau. United States carrier-borne dire bombers are continuing their nuisance raids on Macau and the coast of both of China. While these attacks have not done great damage, they have nevertheless outraged the neutrality of Portugal. We expected that strong representations will be made by the Portuguese government to Washington. Angered protests came from Lisbon. The bombing of Portuguese Macau by dire bombers of the United States carrier fleet must be regarded as a sinister violation of our sovereignty. That affects not us alone, but all the rightful conscience of the world. The U.S. government expressed its regret for the unfortunate bombing, which it was said was accidental. An inquiry was ordered. In less than four months, Macau was accidentally bombed again. Again, the U.S. government expressed its regret and offered to pay compensation. And hardly had these regrets been received when a new incident was reported. Yes, I remember that one. I was down on the waterfront. It was too far out for me to make out exactly what damage was done. But the Portuguese governor said that an American bomber strapped and sank a towboat, killing 19 and wounding five of the Chinese crew. Macau was on tenterhooks, not only the Portuguese but also the Japanese. The droves of fishing crafts, tugs, cargo boats, sampans, and junk scattered, and Macau drew within itself and shivered. When at last the war ended, the boats came back. The gambling houses, the opium dens, the centers of vice opened again. The Japanese left, but the Portuguese stayed. Within ten days of the war's end, agitation was underway in China for the return of Macau. Macau was obtained by virtue of an unequal treaty, so said an editorial in the powerful newspaper, Tarkun Powell. Under the Portuguese rule, Macau is a spot of corruption, gambling, all kinds of immoralities, and the hideout of criminals. It is most regrettable if the United Nations still allow greediness against the Atlantic Charter. The cry was quickly taken up in China. Radio Chungking broadcast excerpts of the editorial, and Chinese students organized to bring the demand to the attention of the world. Macau was the first instance of territorial concession in the history of China. Now that all unequal treaties have been abolished, and even Guangchuan lease territory has been returned to China, Macau should not be accepted. Chinese scholars set forth their reasons why Macau should be returned. Macau was grabbed from China by trickery. Its return to China would erase the last stain of unfair international dealings with China. Over the space of 400 years, a dynamic account of international relations has been written in the tiny area of land, one mile wide and three miles long, called Macau. And perhaps yet another chapter may be written in its story before its status is finally settled. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations, to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. The Pacific Story is written and produced by Arnold Marquis. The music was scored and conducted by Henry Russell. Your narrator, Victor Perrin. Programs in this series of particular interest to servicemen and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood. It is heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.
