A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macao's Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony's political awakening.

Now as Macao prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China this week, the city's democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory.

"Macao's civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that's the truth," said Au Kam-san, 67, a primary school teacher who became one of Macao's longest-serving pro-democracy legislators.