The ‘miracle of development’, the good neighborhood policy, and political coexistence: documentary film in Macau in the 1960s-1974.

This paper discusses documentaries that were shot in Macau by Portuguese film-makers largely in response to the 123 Incident and its aftermath, as well as the official discourse that emerged in connection with it as it appeared in the Portuguese-language press. These riots occurred in December 1966, when Chinese residents of Macau used Cultural Revolution-like protests to contest what they viewed as an inefficient and unfair Portuguese administration. They had a long-lasting and deep impact further weakening Portuguese colonial rule. In an attempt to counter the image damage caused by the Incident and legitimize Portuguese sovereignty in the territory during what was its worst crisis in the twentieth century, official discourse, and these films, came to promote the territory as a site of development and modernization as well as an exemplary case of good neighborhood policy towards the People’s Republic of China, and of coexistence at all levels, particularly politically, and which should be used as a model for the world in a time of Cold War.