[3] Established in 1949, officially to promote trade ties between Macau and mainland China, it operated as the unofficial representative and "shadow government" of the People's Republic in relation to the Portuguese administration.

[4] It also served to challenge the rival "Special Commissariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China" in the territory, which represented the Kuomintang government on Taiwan.

UNESCO then issued a warning to the Macau government, which led former Chief Executive Edmund Ho to sign a notice regulating height restrictions on buildings around the site.

[11] In 2015, the New Macau Association submitted a report to UNESCO claiming that the government had failed to protect Macao's cultural heritage against threats by urban development projects.

[12][11] In 2016, the Macau government approved an 81-meter construction limit for the residential project, which reportedly goes against the city’s regulations on the height of buildings around world heritage site Guia Lighthouse.