How World War II Shaped Macau's Refugee Haven, Casino Economy and Modern Identity

A neutral enclave transformed by war

Between 1937 and 1945, Macau's population grew from fewer than 200,000 to as many as 700,000 by some estimates. Refugees crowded into a small territory under Portuguese administration on China's southern coast, seeking safety while Japanese occupation spread across surrounding regions. Their arrival brought hunger, disease and pressure on housing, alongside new businesses, cultural activity and connections that would outlast the war.

As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2025, Macau's experience offers a different perspective on a conflict more often remembered through the devastation of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Nanjing. Unlike Hong Kong, which fell to Japanese forces in December 1941, Macau was never formally occupied. Its fragile neutrality made it a rare refuge, even as economic pressure and shortages reached deep into daily life.

The territory became a meeting place for displaced Chinese families, European Jews, businesspeople, artists, intelligence agents and smugglers. Some found work and opportunity. Others endured overcrowded shelters and harsh refugee camps. Wealth, nationality and personal connections could determine whether wartime Macau meant a hotel room or a struggle to find food.

That uneven experience helped shape the city's later identity. Refugee networks fed into commerce, entertainment and hospitality, while people such as Stanley Ho began building relationships that would matter in the decades after the war. Macau's emergence as a global gambling and tourism centre grew partly from these wartime changes, alongside a gambling industry that had already been legal since the middle of the 19th century.

How neutrality kept Macau outside formal occupation

Portugal maintained a policy of neutrality throughout World War II, and Macau, under Portuguese administration since the 16th century, followed that position. Neutrality meant staying formally outside the fighting. In Macau, maintaining it required constant negotiation with powers whose armies and interests surrounded the territory.

Japan and the Allies respected Macau's position, although relations were tense. The enclave was small, held less strategic importance than Hong Kong and served as a useful channel for trade and intelligence. Those circumstances helped it remain outside formal Japanese occupation while much of East Asia faced violence and military control.

Academic studies of Macau's wartime neutrality describe Portuguese authorities negotiating with Japanese officials while maintaining ties with Chinese Nationalists and the Allies. Officials sometimes cooperated with Japanese demands as they sought to prevent occupation and keep the territory functioning.

Japan nevertheless applied mounting pressure through economic blockades and demands to censor activities opposing Japan. Macau's authorities had to manage access to supplies as well as diplomatic relations. A territory could remain formally neutral while still finding its food, trade and public expression constrained by a powerful neighbour.

Several dates show how Macau's wartime experience connected with its later development:

• 1937 to 1945: Refugee arrivals drove population growth from fewer than 200,000 to as many as 700,000 by some estimates.
• December 1941: Hong Kong fell to Japanese forces, while Macau remained outside formal occupation.
• 1962: Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau secured the exclusive licence to operate casinos, a major step in the city's development after the war.

Refuge turned into a struggle for food and shelter

Chinese civilians made up most of the refugees, fleeing the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, Guangdong and, later, Hong Kong. Wealthy businesspeople and intellectuals arrived alongside artists and families who had lost nearly everything. Macau offered relative safety, but the sudden population increase stretched the city's ability to house and feed people.

The upper estimate of 700,000 residents was more than three times the prewar figure of fewer than 200,000. Schools, hotels and public buildings became shelters. Overcrowding, shortages of food and outbreaks of disease turned refuge into a daily contest for basic necessities.

Portuguese authorities built barracks and sometimes confined the poorest refugees to camps where conditions were harsh. Money and status shaped access to protection. People with wealth or Portuguese connections generally fared better than those without either, making the refugee experience sharply different from one household to another.

Chinese resistance associations and diaspora networks helped organise humanitarian relief. Women's organisations and churches distributed food and medicine. These efforts supported people in immediate distress while creating relationships between residents, refugees and communities abroad. Those social and economic networks continued to matter after the fighting ended.

Jewish refugees and journeys interrupted

Several hundred European Jews were among those who reached Macau. They had escaped Nazi persecution, found temporary safety in Shanghai and then moved again as conditions there deteriorated. Their journeys to Macau formed a smaller part of the much larger movement of people into the territory.

Many hoped Macau would be a stop on a route to Lisbon and then to the United States or England. Wartime blockades frequently left them stranded instead. Survival depended on charity, resourcefulness and, in some cases, marriages of convenience intended to obtain Portuguese passports.

Books and planned films have brought renewed attention to these experiences. The description of Macau as a "Casablanca of the Orient" captures a place associated with hope, intrigue and journeys that did not reach their intended destination. For refugees, the city's role as a crossroads could mean an escape route, but also a prolonged wait.

A planned adaptation of Paul French's "Strangers on the Praia" tells the story of Jewish refugees in wartime Macau. Discussion of the planned refugee film includes the possibility of filming in Portugal. The project remains part of the effort to bring these experiences to a wider audience, rather than a completed screen account.

Spies, smugglers and the business of survival

Macau's neutrality and rapid influx of people also made it a centre for espionage and clandestine trade. Japanese, Chinese Nationalist, Communist and Allied intelligence agents operated in the territory. Their presence added danger and uncertainty to a city already struggling with shortages and displacement.

Smuggling supplied food and fuel, as well as tungsten, a metal of strategic importance. Unofficial trading routes became a lifeline for residents and the Portuguese administration. Keeping the territory supplied required dealings with Japanese and German interests as well as the competing groups operating locally.

Stanley Ho arrived as a refugee from Hong Kong and found opportunities in this unsettled economy. He worked for the Macau Co-operative Company, established by the Japanese to manage trade, bartering materials for food and making contacts across the city's diverse communities.

Ho, who later became Macau's casino tycoon, recalled the atmosphere of intelligence activity, violence and gambling:

Macao was tiny, and yet a bit like Casablanca—all the secret intelligence, the murders, the gambling—it was a very exciting place.

His recollection conveys the excitement that some people found in wartime Macau. The trading relationships and community contacts he developed also help explain how the territory's wartime economy connected with later business growth. For those able to move between different commercial and social circles, survival could create opportunities that lasted beyond the conflict.

Hotel nightlife beside hunger and disease

Hotel Central and Grande Hotel Kuoc Chai became centres of nightlife during the war. Refugee musicians and dancers found employment there, bringing new forms of entertainment to Macau. For privileged residents and visitors, the territory could offer relative safety, luxury and social activity while fighting continued elsewhere.

Poorer refugees lived in a very different city. Hunger, illness and sometimes violence shaped their days. Accounts from the period describe severe conditions in camps, including cholera outbreaks and rumours of cannibalism during the worst food shortages. The contrast between hotel entertainment and camp hardship was one of the starkest features of wartime life.

The influx of performers and other displaced workers helped expand hospitality and entertainment. Hotels provided employment for some refugees, while their audiences and customers sustained businesses. Yet the same population increase placed heavy demands on food supplies and accommodation, leaving many people outside those opportunities.

Macau's wartime cultural activity therefore grew alongside deep deprivation. The territory could be a place of creativity and social life for one group, and an exhausting struggle for shelter and food for another. Both experiences belong to the history of the city that emerged from the war.

Cooperation, resistance and artistic refuge

Macau's residents and officials responded to Japanese power in different ways. Some supported resistance to Japan. Others cooperated with Japanese interests for profit or survival. Within the Portuguese administration, some officials worked with Japanese authorities while others quietly assisted the Chinese resistance.

Ho Yin, a businessman who later became an important figure in Macau's development after the war, was among the people whose lives reflected the territory's complex political and commercial relationships. Survival required navigating a place where trade, official decisions and competing loyalties were closely connected.

Russian painter George Smirnoff found refuge and artistic inspiration in Macau. His experience forms part of the city's wartime cultural history, alongside the musicians, dancers and other displaced artists who contributed to local life.

Macau's role as an artistic refuge added to the cultural changes brought by migration. People arriving from different places carried skills, experiences and ways of working with them. Their activity helped make the territory more culturally varied even while wartime scarcity limited what many residents could do.

What Melville Jacoby recorded

American journalist Melville Jacoby left photographs and letters that preserve another view of Macau during the war. He covered the Asia Pacific theatre for major United States publications, and his images recorded daily routines, social gatherings and the city's architecture.

Jacoby's correspondence describes parties, gambling and efforts to carry on amid uncertainty. His photographs and letters, being rediscovered and published, preserve details of how people spent their time and maintained social lives while the wider region was at war.

These records add a personal scale to the history of population growth, shortages and diplomacy. Streets, buildings and gatherings show the physical and social setting in which people tried to continue ordinary activities. The parties and gambling in Jacoby's correspondence sit alongside the uncertainty that shaped the territory's future.

From wartime contacts to the casino economy

Gambling had been legal in Macau since the middle of the 19th century. During World War II, the arrival of refugees with business experience and international connections helped expand entertainment and hospitality. The war years saw the emergence of the modern model combining casinos and hotels, connecting gambling with accommodation and nightlife.

Stanley Ho and his partners later founded Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, known as STDM. In 1962, the company secured the exclusive licence to operate casinos. Western style games, luxury hotels and philanthropy became part of its approach, helping set the stage for Macau's rise as the world's largest gambling market.

The connection between war and later growth runs through people, skills and relationships. Refugees brought commercial knowledge and contacts. Performers contributed to entertainment. Traders learned to work across communities and competing interests. After the war, these experiences became part of an economy increasingly organised around visitors, hotels and gambling.

Migration continued as families sought stability after war and revolution. Some Macanese returned to Portugal or emigrated to Brazil, Australia or the United States. Others stayed to build new lives in a city undergoing rapid modernisation. The movement of people both into and out of Macau helped shape its society and its communities overseas.

A wartime legacy still visible in 2025

Macau is now a Special Administrative Region of China, known for casinos, architecture from the period of Portuguese administration and a distinctive cultural heritage. Its blend of Chinese and Portuguese influences, multicultural society and diaspora communities carry traces of the migrations that reshaped it during and after the war.

Museums, literature and planned films continue to revisit the wartime experience. The attention given to Jewish refugees, Jacoby's records and the lives of displaced artists broadens a history often overshadowed by events in larger cities. Macau's past includes both the people who found protection and those whose safety came with severe hardship.

The territory's modern identity grew from that combination of refuge, inequality, negotiation and enterprise. Neutrality kept Macau outside formal occupation, while Japanese pressure and interrupted supplies constrained daily life. Refugees helped sustain new cultural and business activity, even as many faced hunger and disease. The city that later prospered through tourism and gambling was shaped in part by those very different wartime experiences.

Key Points

• Macau remained under Portuguese administration and was never formally occupied by Japan during World War II.
• Between 1937 and 1945, its population rose from fewer than 200,000 to as many as 700,000 by some estimates.
• Most refugees were Chinese civilians; several hundred European Jews also found refuge in the territory.
• Food shortages, overcrowding and disease hit poorer refugees hardest, while community groups, churches and women's organisations provided relief.
• Espionage, smuggling, hotel entertainment and wartime trading networks became important parts of local life.
• Stanley Ho's STDM secured the exclusive casino licence in 1962, helping build the economy associated with modern Macau.
• Wartime migration continues to be reflected in Macau's culture, diaspora communities and historical remembrance.