FIFTEEN years ago Zhuhai was a village on the Chinese side of the border with Portuguese Macau. In the early 1980s, Zhuhai turned itself into an economic zone and today is a modern city of 650,000 people.
The narrow waterway which separates Macau from the Chinese mainland, once an important crossing point for Chinese political and economic refugees, has become less relevant as the two worlds, once so far apart, begin to look indistinguishable.
When Macau reverts to China in 1999, the territory will become a capitalist suburb of Zhuhai, and, all going well, the joint metropolis will be upheld by Beijing as a model of the "one country two systems" formula which Beijing is using to reunite China.
While the worlds attention has been centred on Hong Kong which China will take back next year, Macau has been calmly preparing for its change of sovereignty with much less fear and uncertainty.
In Macau, the bamboo curtain has already been pulled back. Forty thousand people traverse the border each day, making it for now one of the busiest intersections between Communist China and the outside. Macau shoppers cross over every day for the cheaper prices in Zhuhai's department stores, while thousands of Chinese workers commute to Macau.
Under the joint Chinese Portuguese declaration of 1987, Macau will remain a special administrative region for 50 years after 1999, by which time it is estimated the two systems will have blended together.
This status will mean that Macau will be able to retain gambling, officially forbidden in China, as one of its two sources of income, the other being tourism. It will still be a window to the world for China's international dealings.
The transfer of sovereignty in Macau is proceeding with much less ill will than in Hong Kong. One reason is that there is little historical animosity between Portugal and China. Also Macau politics is less focused on the fraught issues of democracy and human rights than in Hong Kong, where local politicians and the British Governor, Chris Patten, have clashed with China over how these issues should be handled in future.
Where Mr Patten is portrayed as a trouble maker by Beijing, the Portuguese Governor, Gen Vasco Rocha Vieira, enjoys excellent relations with the de facto Chinese consul in Macau, Mr Wang Qiren, head of the Xinhua News agency. If the local pro Beijing newspaper, the Macau Daily, publishes a harsh attack on the Portuguese, which happens about once a month, Mr Qiren goes, to the pink and white governor's mansion to apologise.
"The Chinese are prepared to accommodate the Governor to such an extent because they have got almost everything they want from the Portuguese, including unfettered economic development by mainland firms. Chinese investment in Macau is proportionately three times greater than in Hong Kong.
This has left the enclave of fewer than half a million people With a property glut of 30,000 unoccupied apartments. The city also has an expensive but under used new airport with fewer passengers passing through its cavernous terminals than predicted.
The business community feels, however, that the more Chinese investment the better, as it will make Macau attractive to outside companies seeking joint endeavours with Chinese firms.
The Portuguese government has shown little concern for issues of human rights after it leaves and has also not tried to introduce democratic reforms prior to 1999, as Governor Pattendid in Hong Kong. It introduced limited democracy in the 1970s and the Chinese government will allow its legislature, re elected last month amid rumours of jobbery and bribe taking, to straddle the takeover.
There was little internal pressure to make political changes. Macau's politics is not as developed as in Hong Kong. In any event 90 per cent of the population supports the coming handover. About half the population arrived in the last 15 years from China and shows little interest in politics. Members of the mixed blood Macanese minority have little incentive to agitate for rights as they qualify for Portuguese passports, which means they can leave if things go wrong.
Unlike three million Hong Kong Chinese who have been spurned by Britain, all people born in Macau before 1982, totalling over 100,000, have also been given Portuguese passports and the right to live in any EU country.
With time running out, the Portuguese have, however, been slow in localising the 15,000 strong civil service and police. By mid1996, only half the 951 top positions and none of the 30 most important posts had been filled by members of the majority Chinese community.
The maintenance of civil law in the territory after 1999 will be complicated by language and personnel problems. Where most lawyers in Hong Kong are Chinese, there are no ethnic Chinese in the Macau legal system, though several dozen are being trained. Macau law is in Portuguese only and is laboriously being translated into Chinese.
With the clock ticking towards 1999, Macau will be watching closely what happens in Hong Kong. Trouble there could change the climate in the oldest European colony in Asia. But as casino magnate Stanley Ho said recently, "I think the `one country two systems' concept is for real. Chinese leaders will lose face if it is not a success.