CNS: Having been in Macao for decades, what are your feelings about the characteristics of Macao's "blending of East and West"? What do you think Macao can do to promote the exchanges and mutual understanding between Eastern and Western civilizations?
Harald Brüning: Of course, the fact that Macao is a "special" region in China is primarily due to its "special" history and its multiculturalism consisting of Eastern and Western (Occidental and Oriental) cultural, culinary, architectural, judicial, societal and other aspects.
Macao is the only city in China with a southern European touch. This is, no doubt, special, even unique. But Macao is also a very Chinese society. Chinese culture is the mainstay of its society. Chinese customs and traditions are actively observed by Macao's ethnic Chinese residents, who account for well over 90 percent of its population.
Macao should continue to play its historic role as a platform for relations between the Occident and the Orient, between China and the world's nine Portuguese-speaking countries with a combined population of about 270 million and the European Union's 450 million inhabitants, but also Southeast Asia, considering that probably around one-sixth of Macao's population consists of overseas Chinese immigrants and their locally born offspring from various Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and elsewhere.
Macao can also play a special role in promoting scientific exchanges between China and the rest of the world, such as by attracting highly qualified researchers, inventors and innovators to work and settle here.
Particularly since 2013, Macao has benefitted from the Central People's Government's pro-active measures to support Macao's future development as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure, as well as a hub for innovation, research (such as in the area of traditional Chinese medicine/TCM), startups, financial services, big health, and high tech.
My expectation is that Macao's modernization process will continue to go on well in the coming decades and that the MSAR will increasingly integrate itself into the GBA. I also expect Macao to maintain its special identity as an East-meets-West hub concurrently with its ongoing integration in the GBA and China as a whole.
As a long-time resident, I have full confidence in the future of the MSAR. While I do not have any immediate plans to retire, even if I retire one day I would live out my last years in Macao.
About the interviewee:
Harald Brüning, born in Germany in 1953, graduated from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a Master's Degree in Political Science and also holds a Master's Degree in Political Science (M.I.P.A.) from the University of Hong Kong. He passed the state examination for certified translators (German-Spanish) in Germany and is also fluent in English and Portuguese.
He has lived and worked in Hong Kong and Macao since the 1980s, and has worked for news organisations such as Hong Kong Standard, South China Morning Post, Reuters, United Press International (UPI), and Portugal's national news agency LUSA, and has been involved in reporting on the Macao's return to China, etc. In 2004, he co-founded The Macau Post Daily, the oldest English-language local newspaper in Macao, and has been the director of the newspaper ever since.
He is focusing on topics such as China's diplomacy, Sino-European economy and trade, Greater Bay Area cooperation, and Macao's development.
Edited by：Pei Xinyu
12.19.2024
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