Hong Kong: HKU Press; New York: Columbia University Press [distributor], 2017. x, 224 pp. (Graphs, maps, B&W photos.) $50.00, cloth. ISBN 978-988-8390-51-9.
World War II was a terrible human experience, during which China endured the longest and most extensive suffering. Yet Macau, a tiny Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong and with a population of about 120,000 in 1936, miraculously warded off Japanese military invasion. Why was Macau so fortunate in avoiding the war? And did Macau endure any sort of hardship, not being a direct participant in that war?
Aiming to address these issues, the authors of this collection study wartime Macau and offer their explanations for the phenomenon. In chapter 1, “Wartime Macau in the Wider Diplomatic Sphere,” Geoffrey Gunn analyzes Macau’s five interlocking wartime diplomatic dimensions: the narrowed remaining space between Japan and Japanese-controlled South China; Portuguese-Japanese contention over Timor and its relationship with Macau; Portugal’s relations with the Allies, which affected its decision on Macau; the assassination of the Japanese Consul Fukui; and the Japanese military ultimatum of August-September 1941 to the Macau governor. What underlined Portugal’s “collaborating neutrality” with the Japanese over Macau, Geoffrey claims, was the September 1941 Tokyo-Macau agreement, under which Portugal acceded to many Japanese demands in return for maintaining Macau’s neutrality and access to a food supply. Japan respected Macau’s neutrality because of its interest in keeping Lisbon as an intelligence post and Macau as a favourable platform for the re-export of war materials, including opium stocks. Meanwhile, the Allies lost their interest in pressing Macau into the war because Macau was no longer a potential military foothold or a source of war materials to the Allies due to the Japanese blockade, while its neutrality made it a haven of European and Chinese refugees from Hong Kong and mainland China.
In chapter 2, “Macau 1937–45: Living on the Edge: Economic Management over Military Defenses,” João F.O. Bots appraises highly the leading roles Governor Gabriel Maurício Teixeira and Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), a Portuguese National Overseas Bank, played in dealing with the economic crises of wartime Macau. They made plans ahead for contingency. Through the middleman Stanley Ho, and measures such as issuing “emergency certificate notes” in lithography and pangtans as promissory notes and using a ration system, they made a major contribution to stabilizing the currency and securing the rice supply, and provided a large number of European refugees from Hong Kong with monthly funding, shelters, food, sanitation, and clinic services. The society of Macau, including elites, various communities, associations and clubs, charitable organizations, etc., played a no less significant role in rescuing desperate people, raising and distributing personal donations, and keeping morale as high as possible. Yet, as Geoffrey discusses in chapter 3, “Hunger amidst Plenty: Rice Supply and Livelihood in Wartime Macau,” many locals fell “prey to hunger, disease, and lack of shelter and clothing” (72). Speculation and smuggling became accepted and tolerated and hyperinflation was a fact of life in Macau. While certain individuals thrived, the most vulnerable strata of Macau society, namely the Chinese refugee population and the indigent working class, suffered the most. Many of them had nutritional deficits, weight loss, dehydration, dysentery, fever and so on. Some media reported that the bodies of beggars and street people were actually being cannibalized. In 1941–1942, a cholera epidemic broke out in Macau. The cold snap hit Macau during the “black spring” of 1942, resulting in the creation of “the pit of 10,000 corpses” (81).
In chapters 4 and 5, “The Macanese at War: Survival and Identity among Portuguese Eurasians during World War II,” and “Nossa Gente (Our People): The Portuguese Refugee Community in Wartime Macau,” Roy Eric Xavier and Stuart Braga trace the refugee life of the Macanese, an ethnic group with a mixed Chinese and Portuguese ancestry. The Portuguese refugee community that escaped from Hong Kong received generous financial support, food rations, and other services from the Macau government, and were sheltered in the local Bela Vista Hotel and other settlements. In fact, this community enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in Macau, and was determined to set up its own resources, in the form of schools and churches, as well as organized sports, concerts, and entertainments, in order to keep its spirit high and life normal. In doing so, the prewar hierarchies separating the Macanese from their superiors were dissolved and a new identity of the Macanese as “intermediaries” between antagonists emerged. Many Macanese were viewed as “entrepreneurs” rather than black-market profiteers, who utilized their social connections and personal language skills to procure food and other resources for the community. Others were intensively involved with the Chinese and British undergrounds. Indeed, as Geoffrey describes in the last chapter, “The British Army Aid Group (BAAG) and the Anti-Japanese Resistance Movement in Macau,” Macau was turned into a base of anti-Japanese resistance, to which anti-Japanese Macanese activists, the BAAG, Chinese Nationalists, and the Communist underground all contributed, as well as a centre of Japanese espionage.
In short, the book tells us a story of World War II that has largely been ignored, probably because of Macau’s status of wartime neutrality. Contrary to popular belief, a neutral Macau had as difficult and complex a wartime life as cities directly involved in hostilities. With reliable sources, the contributors to this volume provide the reader with a microhistory, dissecting wartime Macau society and its diplomatic efforts into its many component parts. Since little attention has been paid to this subject, the book is unprecedented and a valuable source for those interested in the history of the Hong Kong-Macau region and World War II as well as the theme of war and peace and military history. As a conference volume, not every paper made the final edition, which was unfortunate as more context would have added value to this study. Further, had the authors included a comparative review of the existing literature on their research subject within a theoretical framework, the book would have been more comprehensive, interesting, and enlightening.
C.X. George Wei
University of Macau, Macao SAR, China