Te outlier...
Speaking at an event held by the French Chamber of Commerce in Macau at the end of January, Priscilla Roberts, Associate Professor at City University of Macau, said: “I think it’s quite possible that American casinos will no longer be as welcome in Macau. There may be some pressure for the casinos to be more China operated, which may be an opening for localisation, so to speak.”
G3 spoke directly to Ms. Roberts about her statement, the interest it has stirred and her opinion as to the future of the concessionaire licences in Macau and the relationship between China and the US.
Did you know, when making your comments, that you’d draw international attention?
Priscilla Roberts: I don’t think what I said is really that controversial. Te talk I gave to the French Chamber mostly concerned whether the Biden administration’s China policy would be materially different from that of the Trump administration. I more or less said that China was between a rock and a hard place. While Trump didn’t greatly care for Chinese expansion in the South China Sea, or what China is doing in Hong Kong, Xinjian or Taiwan, the fact that he had a large number of China hawks in his administration meant that in the past year policy swung in a strongly anti-China direction.
I believe that with Biden we'll get the same policies, but more politely implemented. And also, probably more effectively and competently implemented with allies, since with Trump there was the sheer unpredictability of the man, whereas with Biden you know, from one day to another, what's going to happen. Biden’s administration is likely to be better organised and more competent, but it will still share the same fundamentally unfavourable view of China.
Do you think China’s relationship with foreign- owned operators in Macau is likely to change as a result of this heightened tension?
Priscilla Roberts: Well, the casino licences are up for renegotiation or retender in the next one to two years and that's certainly been very much on everybody's mind. I know that back in the late 90s to early 2000s, Macau made a big effort to court Wynn and Las Vegas Sands casinos to diversify away from the Stanley Ho interests. Te Portuguese lawyer who went to open negotiations with Steve Wynn was initially thrown out of office when he explained who he was and what he represented. Steve Wynn called them “gangsters” and didn't want to continue the discussion. Obviously, they managed to get over that problem and Steve Wynn certainly invested in Macau in a big way.
My own feeling is that at present, if China is looking for a token sanction against the United States, the casinos in Macau are low hanging fruit. However, the impact won’t be the same under Biden as under Trump. Both Steve Wynn and the recently deceased Sheldon Adelson
P204 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
Priscilla Roberts, Associate Professor, City University of Macau
Priscilla Roberts teaches in the Faculty of Business of City University of Macau and is codirector of that university’s Asia-Pacific Business Research Centre. Among her recent publications are the edited volume, Hong Kong in the Cold War (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016); (with co-editor Odd Arne Westad) China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2017); and The Cold War: Interpreting Conflict Through Primary Documents, 2 vols. (ABC-CLIO, 2018).
info@um.edu.mo
“If China is looking for a token sanction against the United States, the casinos in Macau
are low hanging fruit. However, the impact won’t be the same under Biden as under Trump. Both Steve Wynn and the recently deceased Sheldon
Adelson, were both very, very big supporters of Trump and the Republicans. Those self- same interests are not close to the hearts of the new democrat administration.” Priscilla Roberts
were both very, very big supporters of Trump and the Republicans. Tose self-same interests are not close to the hearts of the new democrat administration.
I know that there's a lot of manoeuvring currently taking place concerning the concessionary licences in Macau. However, I don't know the ins and outs of that at all. I do know, however, as one of the architects involved with the casinos told me, these operations made back their initial investment within six months. After that it's all jam. So I’d say they’ve done pretty well from Macau already.
Do you think the US-owned casinos in Macau are running on borrowed time?
Priscilla Roberts: I think this is not something that's going to inflict a huge amount of pain, but at the same time, it would be a symbolic gesture. Tat's just my own cynical feeling about it. It may be that, ultimately, the US-owned casinos
pay off the right people. It depends upon the political will and allegiances of the parties involved. Miriam Adelson remains a strongly pro-Trump supporter, almost as much as her late husband. Steve Wynn’ circumstances have changed as he was forced out after the MeToo scandal revealed he'd been harassing women working in his casinos for many years.
I found it amusing when I heard how the Wynn Board expressed reservations as to whether he had the very high character needed to operate a squeaky-clean casino in Macau.
Why did China seek to liberalise gambling in Macau in the first place?
Priscilla Roberts: In the 1990s, China wished to decrease the influence of Stanley Ho in Macau, as the PRC was worried he wasn’t 100 per cent pro-China. Crucially, this stems from a public statement Mr. Ho made in June of 1989, recommending the continuation of the
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