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Written by Prof Da Hsuan Feng, Senior Vice President for Global\nStrategy, Planning and Evaluation of National Tsing Hua University
\u201cNo one 20 years ago would have dreamed\nthat the sleepy town of Macau would one day be giving high fives to the front\nline of higher education. Who would have thought then that this small Special\nAdministrative Region (SAR) would now be renting land from the Mainland in\norder to build a world-class university? That this has now happened is an\nindication of how far we have come in political, cultural and economic terms. <\/b><\/p>\n\n
For me, the University of Macau should\nbe seen as the rest of the world\u2019s window on higher education in the Asia\nPacific region. If it is successful, the impact will surely be global.\nTherefore the world should really take note of this development.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n\n
The Start of Higher Education in Macau<\/b> <\/p>\n\n
Macau is tiny. It is\nroughly 30 square kilometres. Its \u201cminuteness\u201d is matched by its small\npopulation which is about half a million. Politically, Macau had been a\nPortuguese colony for 400 years before becoming an SAR (Special Administrative\nRegion) of the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1999. It was the second region\n(the first is Hong Kong) to take on this special title under the auspices of\nthe now world famous \u201cone country two systems\u201d policy. Since becoming an SAR Macau\nhas made enormous strides in economic development. Its gaming \u2014 a euphemism for\ngambling \u2014 industry has grown exponentially. Indeed, Macau\u2019s gaming revenue\ntoday is many times larger than its closest competitor Las Vegas in the United\nStates. <\/p>\n\n
The history of higher education in\nMacau is a short one. Prior to 1981, there were for all practical purposes no\ntertiary educational institutions at all. Secondary school graduates of Macau\nwould either go to Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Mainland or overseas for their tertiary\neducation. This situation was altered somewhat when the University of Macau\n(UM) was founded in 1981 as a private institution. Later, in 1991, some eight\nyears before the handover of Macau\u2019s sovereignty, UM was acquired by the then\nMacau Portuguese government and thus became a public university. <\/p>\n\n
I suspect that with the handover\nlooming on the horizon the Portuguese colonial government probably did not have\nthe time or the resources, and maybe even more importantly, the need to\nseriously consider developing UM into a modern university. For these reasons,\nUM\u2019s campus, like Macau itself, was small \u2014 roughly 120 th of a square\nkilometre. If it wasn\u2019t actually the world\u2019s smallest university, it was\ncertainly one of the smallest. And even if the government had wanted to expand\nit \u2014 and they probably did not \u2014 there was no land available to do so. <\/p>\n\n
Hence, the 20th century ended quietly\nfor both Macau and its university. <\/p>\n\n
Developing a World-class University from Gaming Revenue<\/b> <\/p>\n\n
There are a number of regions of the\nworld that have made the gaming industry their primary or sole source of\nrevenue. Las Vegas, as mentioned earlier, is one. Atlantic City in New Jersey\nis another. On a much smaller scale, Monte Carlo in Europe is another. Then\nthere is Macau. All of them are situated in North America or Europe. Macau is\nthe only one in Asia and it is the only one that has undergone a monumental\npolitical transformation in the 20th century. <\/p>\n\n
Such a transformation would be nothing\nextraordinary if Macau had merely leveraged on the opportunity to change itself\nfrom the relatively small gaming centre that it used to be to the mega one that\nit is today. If that were all that had happened, Macau would be looked on as\nmerely a larger version of Las Vegas. <\/p>\n\n
But something in the middle of the\nfirst decade of the 21st century made Macau absolutely and stunningly different\nfrom all its counterparts in North America and Europe. The leadership of Macau,\nhaving now acquired a very deep financial pocket, began to think of how to use\nthis \u201cnewfound wealth\u201d to transform the small SAR into something that it was\nnot before. <\/p>\n\n
They realised that what was sorely\nmissing in Macau was a world-class university simply because for any modern\ncity to become world-class it must first become a city of knowledge, but before\nit can become this it needs to have a world-class university. <\/p>\n\n
So their attention turned to the only\npublic university that was in Macau, UM. <\/p>\n\n
Building a world-class university needs\nat least four major components: <\/p>\n\n
Macau now has the first component. <\/p>\n\n
UM has the second\nfactor \u2014 it has appointed a new Rector (i.e. President) through global\nrecruitment. <\/p>\n\n
The third was a major challenge. Macau,\nwith only 30 square kilometres, has absolutely no land to spare. Without the\nland to expand onto there could be no hope of transforming UM into a\nworld-class university. <\/p>\n\n
There is a Sung Dynasty poem by the\nfamous poet Lu You which contains the following lines: \u201cJust as I was about to\nlose hope of ever finding the way out after navigating a maze of\nsimilar-looking mountains and rivers, the entrance to a village with weeping\nwillow trees and blooming flowers greeted my eyes\u201d. Essentially this means that\nhowever hopeless the situation may appear to be there is always a way out. This\nphilosophy, it seems to me, is the underlying reason why Asia Pacific today is\none of the most robust regions in the world. People always seem to find a way\nto overcome difficulties. <\/p>\n\n
The solution to the land problem was\nalmost miraculous. <\/p>\n\n
The following is a map of Macau and the\nsurrounding area, which is entirely within the jurisdiction of the People\u2019s\nRepublic of China. Macau has two sections \u2014 a northern part which is a\npeninsula linking with the Mainland and a southern part which is an island\nknown as Taipa. Sitting on the western side of Taipa, just across a narrow\nwaterway about 250 metres wide is the large and totally under-developed\nMainland island known as Hengqin Island. <\/p>\n\n
From Barren Island to Tertiary\nInstitution<\/b> <\/p>\n\n
Incredibly, someone in Macau\u2019s\nleadership had the idea that perhaps the university could acquire land on\nHengqin Island for expansion. But for this to happen there were two problems\nwhich needed to be solved. <\/p>\n\n
First the land is not part of Macau. <\/p>\n\n
Second, even if UM\ncould build a campus on land that belonged to the Mainland the legal\njurisdiction over it would be that of the Mainland and not of Macau and in that\nscenario the university would be a Mainland university and not Macau\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n
Faced with these two challenges,\nMacau\u2019s leadership decided to \u201ckill two birds with one stone\u201d by negotiating\nwith the central government of the People\u2019s Republic of China to lease 1 square\nkilometre of land on Hengqin Island. This land could then be utilised by the\nMacau government to build a new campus for UM. This was a very complex issue\nbecause by doing so Macau and the Mainland would have to redraw their border so\nthat the laws in this 1 square kilometre would be Macau\u2019s and not China\u2019s, and\nthe currency in use would be Macau\u2019s Pataca and not the Chinese Renminbi. <\/p>\n\n
Another interesting feature about Macau\nas an SAR is that it has no water rights and so the surface of the water\nbetween Taipa and Hengqin belongs to the Mainland. As such, a passenger\ncrossing by boat from Taipa to Hengqin would need the relevant travel documents\nto do so, and one can easily imagine the bureaucratic nightmare that could\nresult from this scenario. <\/p>\n\n
But remarkably, after several years of\nnegotiation, the government of the People\u2019s Republic of China accepted these\nconditions, and to overcome the issue of the water rights it was agreed that a\ntunnel would be built under water and that it would be under Macau\u2019s\njurisdiction. <\/p>\n\n
Hence, in 2009, after pumping close to\nUS$2 billion dollars into its construction, a new campus of more than 80 very\nlarge and ultra-modern buildings broke ground on the newly acquired land of\nMacau on Hengqin Island. <\/p>\n\n
Embracing Challenges Optimistically<\/b> <\/p>\n\n
During the Q&A session of my\nspeech, I observed that the way UM\u2019s campus had grown so quickly to 20 times\nits original size was analogous to what is known in thermodynamics as the\n\u201cnon-adiabatic expansion of a gaseous system\u201d i.e. when the expansion of a\ngaseous system is faster than the system has time to adjust to, the result is chaos.\nBut this is certainly to be preferred to the alternative in this case \u2014 which\nis no expansion at all. Facing such an immediate and somewhat uncertain future\nit is no wonder that everyone I talked to during my two days at UM \u2014 from the\nleadership to the students \u2014 was as full of apprehension as anticipation. <\/p>\n\n
Will UM eventually become a world-class\nuniversity? I think only time will tell. But one thing is undeniable: UM\u2019s\nimpressive progress in recent years has satisfied several preconditions for it\nto achieve such a status. <\/p>\n\n
Firstly, UM has initiated an effort to\nrecruit high-calibre international scholars and it is currently planning to\nlaunch a \u201cTenure System\u201d to retain especially talented faculty members.\nSecondly, the Macau SAR government is continuing to invest in UM. Thirdly,\nMacau\u2019s first-ever interstate laboratories for microelectronics and Chinese\nMedicine \u2014 both approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China \u2014\nwere inaugurated at UM in 2011, thus ushering in a new era of research in these\ntwo fields. And lastly, the number and citation frequency of papers published\nby UM academics are steadily on the rise. These are all favourable indications\nthat UM can indeed become world-class. And although my discussions with the\nleadership, the staff and the students have revealed an awareness of the\nchallenges that UM faces, they have also shown a strong sense of optimism\nacross the whole University which means that the battle is already more than\nhalf won. <\/p>\n\n
The Sky\u2019s the Limit<\/b> <\/p>\n\n
I have been struck by a number of the\ndevelopments that have come about recently, sometimes fortuitously it seems,\nthat would have been considered unimaginable just one or two decades ago. For\nexample, building an international high-speed rail link in the Asia Pacific region\nwould have been unthinkable both from an economic and a political perspective,\nand yet now such high speed lines are not just conceivable but actually quite\ncommon. <\/p>\n\n
Similarly, no one 20\nyears ago would have dreamed that the sleepy town of Macau would one day be\ngiving high fives to the front line of higher education. Who would have thought\nthen that this small Special Administrative Region would now be renting land\nfrom the Mainland in order to build a world-class university? That this has now\nhappened is an indication of how far we have come in political, cultural and\neconomic terms. <\/p>\n\n
For me, the University of Macau should\nbe seen as the rest of the world\u2019s window on higher education in the\nAsia-Pacific region. If it is successful the impact will surely be global.\nTherefore the world should really take note of this development. <\/p>\n\n
How exciting indeed!
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