HK Occupy Central has spillover effect, scholar says

Prof Robert Chung, director of the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program, believes the Occupy Central movement has had a spillover effect in Macau, as we now observe “a more active civic society” here.
He has recently led a research project on Macau residents’ support for universal suffrage, following a request by the New Macau Association.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Prof Chung said that Macau’s political culture since its handover to China in 1999 has witnessed changes. “People in both SARs compare what is happening in the two territories (…) We in Hong Kong see Macau as a more conservative society, a more pro-establishment society,” he recalled.
At a time when many citizens took to the streets of Hong Kong to demand a more democratic society and genuine universal suffrage, “it seems to me that this request has a little bit of a spillover effect in Macau too.” “In recent years if not months, we are seeing a more active civic society here,” he acknowledged.
The scholar believes democracy will one day be implemented in the both SARs as well as in Mainland China. For now, the territories “are experimenting with different forms of democracy…In this sense, both are learning from each other, although they’re two different societies.”