![image: [ Passage of time: a lone pedestrian passes the clock unveiled on Tuesday ]](/olmedia/85000/images/_88110_Copy_of_china_macau_clock1_(05-05-98)ap.jpg)
A clock counting down the days to Macau's return to Chinese sovereignty has been unveiled in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The clock stands on the site of a similar device used in the run-up to the Hong Kong handover as the BBC's Beijing Correspondent, Duncan Hewitt, reports:
The countdown to the Hong Kong handover, deemed a matter for national celebration in China, was drawn out over two-years, but the return of the smaller, Portuguese enclave of Macau has been given a lower profile. As a large, red sheet slid down to reveal the new countdown clock, its dial registered just 594 days, or around 51.3 million seconds.
Watching the ceremony were members of the newly inaugurated Macau preparatory committee, presided over by the Chinese Deputy Prime Minister, Qian Qichen. Sixty of its 100 members, approved by China's parliament last week, are Macau citizens.
They include academics, business people and community and religious leaders and range from casino tycoon, Stanley Ho, to the head of the Macau Boat Renter's Association. Mainland members include the Deputy Governor of neighbouring Guangdong province, which has been working closely with Macau over its growing crime problem.
The committee, like its Hong Kong predecessor, will help formulate future election procedures but in practice, China already exerts far greater political control in Macau than it did in the former British colony. This was emphasised by the Beijing youth daily newspaper which said that the design on the new countdown clock, with Macau's emblem beneath that of China's, symbolised the fact that Macau was already a part of the People's Republic.
Nevertheless, the event remains politically significant for China.
The Secretary-General of the Macau Preparatory Committee, Chen Ziying, described the enclave's return as the second stage on the road to China's re-unification, a message clearly designed with Taiwan in mind.
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Macau's Official Information Page
Asian Net's China On-Line
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